Unworthy
by Rissa85-stargazing-85
Summary: Is it possible for unworthiness to dissolve two stubborn personalities so that they may mold and become strengthened? Beauty and the Beast
1. Bloodlines

**Title**: Unworthy

**Author**: Rissa85-Stargazing85

**Rating**: PG-13 to R

**Genre**: Angst, Drama, Romance

**Part**: _Prologue_ (Bloodlines)

**Disclaimer**: I do not own any Disney animational (is that a word?) characters.

**Author's Note**: Beauty and the Beast, besides Pocahontas, is one of my all- time favorite movies. Unlike most Disney movies, it can be psychoanalyzed, chopped, and put back together in whatever sequence best fits. The depth is incredible, and it can be understood at age seven to age seventy. (Unlike Hunchback of Notre Dame, which real meaning is for mature audiences! - Also another fav! =}. This story is going to reflect most of the movie plotline up to a point. Starting from...well from the beginning...

-----

He gazed intently at the burning crimson light encompassing the supernatural flower protected by crystalline glass. Much like his life, if only he could see his once beautiful self-protected by wealth, broken by nothing. Beauty was strength, beauty was powerful, beauty was everything. He had witnessed it himself. But beauty was vulnerable.  
  
He had been a beautiful child, Marcel Jourdain Montague, and lavishly spoiled. His mother attempted to raise him to the best of her abilities, even though his father had been present, he was of no help. A man that was in a constant state of drunkenness due to heavy opium use did not aid in helping a healthy, mischievous and appalling charismatic boy to grow to manhood. In his rare times, when opium wore off and his true self could be shown, the basis of a well-meaning father could be seen.  
  
His father, Leverette Donatien Montague, came from an old family, reaping in the benefits of the Portuguese slave trade and partly funded the Italian Medici bank empire more than two hundred years before. His father's family never knew the feeling of destitution nor wanting. But his father became King of the provincial part of southern France, near the Mediterranean Sea, by being the third in line. The king had fallen ill and quickly died of typhoid fever, without an heir, his brother had been next, but came to a catastrophic end in a sailing accident. His father had been next in line and was given a splendid coronation service in which close royalty and family had been present.  
  
His mother, Chanelle Claire D'Aubigne, came from a wealthy family, not from blood lines, solely from money. Though her family was less credible, since blue blood sufficed to marry blue blood. But his mother had been such a gorgeous creature that his arrogant father had humbled himself and stooped a step down to ask for her hand. They met as her family was holding a banquet in Italy for her, in honor of her coming-of-age, and as Leverette had been traveling was immediately welcomed.  
  
Both families had not been mutual in their enthusiasm. The family D'Aubigne had been more than pleased at the luck their daughter had secured to the family bloodlines. The family Montague had been hostile at best, and unpleasant at worst to the courtship and later to the new bride. Being a haughty family and having a name synonymous with royalty and supremacy only to be mingled with the lines of lesser was intolerable.  
  
As a boy, he always held his mother in regard to his father. Though his father's line was clearer much more defined than hers. Having once been the man of the social hour, and becoming shunned from his family, who greatly withdrew their financial funds but still allowing to live quite a lavish lifestyle, cracked his arrogant ego and he took to drink. All of this he had learned from his wealthy peer social circle and from the whispered matrons that attended the lavish parties he hated to attend. His mother never spoke about his father when he was not present, which was very near never.  
  
Almost to make amends for his lack of parenting, Chanelle gave commands that her boy should have everything that he wished. No was not a word she used to him very often and it was rightly so. Being confined to only his social circle and the elite, he believed it so that he was beautiful and powerful. He looked down upon commoners, the crippled, and the very poor. And of course the savages he had heard were in the distant and yet-to-be explored lands. And as a Frenchman, most of Europe was regarded as lesser to France's geographical diversity and loveliness.  
  
Early in his youth, his father had managed to begin gambling and in a public duel, in which he had been taking opium, had managed to become shot clean through his neck. His mother took to her bed with sickness, and it was at this time that he reinforced his self-importance to its greatest. The Montague family, though never admitting to it, dwindled their funds sent to his mother until she cautiously she replied that her son should live with them, so that he may inherit the Kingdom when he was old enough to rule. A council of Royalty had been ruling at that time.  
  
While living with his father's family side, he began to feel ashamed of his loving mother's family. And shortly after he left, he had heard that she had become insane. Indeed, once he had visited her, she was murmuring in her sleep, carrying a candle around the castle and yelling so at the top of her lungs at his deceased father about her innocence in causing his isolation by his family.  
  
Though she was insane, a slight pang of guilt lashed at him, she was nothing like herself. Clearly, his father's death had touched a pang of guilt that was impossible for her to recover from. Unable to completely shun his mother, but content to speak ill of her among his circle of elite companions, he guilt remained checked. He received a message while living with his paternal grandmother, the harshest critic on his father's 'disgraceful marriage selection'.  
  
His mother had died during the night, and he felt himself unable to take to her funeral, he claimed because he was too distraught, but the guilt he felt over speaking so horribly about her to his society had caught up with him. To lose himself, he began to employ various high-priced mistresses and to clear his mind with brandy and port, the highest brand imported and potent.  
  
He, deferred himself in favor of his favorite cousin, an Italian on his father's side. And was content to keep his father's elaborate castle to himself, declaring himself Prince and was deemed so by the neighboring villages who never saw him, but heard rumors of his ill behavior. He kept himself in his castle, after his mother ceased, and kept himself in her wing-The West Wing.  
  
Presently, he looked into the glass, his eyes becoming unfocused as he looked into the shredded picture of his flawless self. He covered his face with his talons, hating the state he had been reduced to and feeling the immeasurable amount of self-hatred and despair that seized him. He could be free, if he found love.  
  
Love. What was love? He could not remember the last time he had felt love. When his mother died he had not felt love but guilt. When his father died, he had felt nothing than as if an unknown commoner had committed suicide. His mother had spent time with him, tried to teach him love but he could never grasp the concept. Even when he employed the several mistresses he had, it was not love.  
  
He finally resorted to the fact that there was no such emotion as love. But there was such an emotion as mutual benefit. Love was no more than a fantasy created by life's dreamers to explain an abstract and unreal emotion. Perhaps he was far too selfish to experience love. There would be no way for him to give up his life in order to save another's, no matter how fond he became of them.  
  
At any rate, the Enchantress had commanded that either he would find love or would spend the rest of eternity as his present state. Despair filled him, his ugly dark brown fur, hideous fangs, and massive figure complete with talons. What beauty could ever learn to love a beast? Belle sighed with patience as she watched her father work diligently on one of his present inventions. He had such a creative mind, and an active imaginations, perhaps it ran on her father's side of the family. As far as she could remember her father had been the leading figure in her life. He was all that she ever had. Her mother was person she had never known, never spoke to, never seen save for a tucked away picture.

-----

Her mother, was someone she had not known much of. She had passed hours after childbirth, and had gone to live with her only paternal aunt for the first few months after her birth. Ever since, she had lived with her father and who was gentle and tried to make her as comfortable as he could with their meager income funded by some of his smaller inventions and their eggs which they took to town every week.  
  
He had always been gentle to her, as far back as she could remember unless she spoke of her mother. Then his face would twist into a painful gaze and he would question in a strange tone mixed with despair and hurt of why she would think of her? Not wanting to distress her father, she usually and guiltily apologized and let her father alone who sulked for a few moments before becoming cheerful again.  
  
The town had never talked about her father reverently. But her mother was someone she heard of rarely, and it was in tones of reverence and awe. From what she gathered from shopkeepers she questioned clandestinely from her father, most specifically the bookkeeper, her mother had been a Spanish beauty from a family that had been once wealthy and Catholic but hit hard times. As the fortune dwindled and her father rallied against the oppressive government, both her parents had been assassinated. Somehow, she had ended her vagrancy in France, she had been a prostitute in Paris before settling in the small provincial town and marrying her father, Maurice Corbett of the common Laroque family.  
  
The Laroque family was humble but skeptical that their only son should marry a Spanish prostitute. Being French, they looked down on the Spanish. And though she claimed she had once been wealthy, she had no royalty blood to claim and was in a worse position than them, who had never been wealthy but was far from destitute. The marriage was successful, save for her mother's erratic mood swings. She had heard her mother had dark brown straight hair, with dark brown eyes fringed with thick and black lashes.  
  
The first image she had seen of her mother was when she had been looking behind her father's bed when he asked her to run to his room for his tobacco pipe. It was an old and faded painting, quite large and it was framed in gold, which would've cost a fortune in itself. Her beauty had halted her, and she did not know she had been looking at her mother until the village bookkeeper had told her that her mother had been Spanish. The next time she had gone to stare at it, she could not find it.  
  
Perhaps that it why she had heard her paternal father and mother whisper, when she was a child, that the family line had been defiled. Her father had been fair-haired and light-eyed, likewise all the paternal family she had seen had light-eyes and light hair. She had brown hair and brown eyes. 'Defiled by Spanish, probably mingled with the blood of Moors, should've known better than to marry a prostitute...' was a few phrases she had remembered her paternal grandparents to whisper harshly. It hurt her to hear people that she had loved to talk so awful about a woman she wanted to be and admired deeply. It also hurt her that she would never know the woman that gave her birth and managed to pull herself from a soiled state to one of respectability. Half of her being was gone, and a void was what she always felt. As if half a part of her existence was missing.  
  
She had always been an avid reader, but during her adolescence and presently, if half-filled the void that her mother had left. It seemed she would forget her cherished grandparents' comments, deceased they were presently. She had always held them in high regard, and their comments bit her to the very core. Especially as she was growing, transforming to wanting to look like her mother to wishing ardently not to look like her.  
  
Reading made her travel to distant lands and open her imagination. She wondered briefly if her mother ever read. The bookkeeper that had gave her information had passed years before, and the new one knew nothing of her mother, though he had become a close friend and was a gentle old man who loved reading probably as much as she.  
  
Presently, she brought herself to the closed book on her lap and sighed. The familiar feeling of regret that she would never know her mother surfacing. It was an odd feeling of lost that she had grown to tolerate. Still the tightness of her chest began and her eyes watered slightly, as she had learned to control them. And blinked them back, feeling herself cornered in the house her mother had inhabited and breathed and lived in. And she informed her father, "I'll be in town." She replied with evenness, as her father lost in his work dismissed her with a wave of his hand, off- handedly wishing her well knowing she carried the customary book as she did as always when she went to town. 


	2. Habitual Arrogance

**Title**: Unworthy

**Author**: Rissa85-Stargazing85

**Rating**: PG13 to R

**Genre**: Angst, Drama, Romance

**Part**: _Part One_ (Habitual Arrogance)

**Disclaimer**: I do not own any Disney characters. Just doing this outta fun, folks. Don't sue me, I have no money. =(

**Author's Note**: I usually include a prologue and it's always a treat to start on the real story. You have to admit, it's easier to understand a story once a background has been set.

The town was bustling as usual, as Belle entered it, holding her cherished and withered maroon book and a basket of eggs in the other. She paused as a wheelbarrow, overstuffed with fresh bread scooted pass her at an agonizing and pain-staking pace so that the bread may not fall over. Various shops were filled with loud voices attempting to bargain with the seller, shrill muffled voices being heard amongst the loud and low murmur of the animated rest.  
  
Children were running around, much to the heedlessness of their parents, chasing after each other and yelling loudly in their not-yet-matured voices. Some were dressed as miniature commoners, others were dressed as miniature merchants and seamstresses, all were dressed as if they were minute duplications of what ever occupation their parents had obtained.  
  
The only store that was not open, as Belle could guess correctly, was the _Taverne Rose_. The local pub owned and run by the same crude man, wanting to make a profit and excelling excellently at it by offering entertainment and brandy and gin. It was the upper-class and middle-class tavern where most of the town's more wealthy patrons attended in the evening hours, and would remain open until the faint traces of light from sunrise would eek through the door cracks.  
  
The cobblestone streets, a golden bronze in some wealthy districts of residence and of business and a gray in the lesser wealthy districts of residence, led the way for various horse drawn carriages and the affluent who took advantage of the fair and sunny weather to let down the tops as the ladies worse colorful and ostentatious bonnets, a few even adorned with dyed feathers.  
  
Belle remembered as little girl she had interacted with other children, and she could always remember hearing other little girls her age claim that they would give anything and everything to be a wealthy lady when they grow up with beautiful gowns and expensive jewelry and status. Anomalous she was to them then, that she a humble inventor's daughter who held a farm as a stable source of income, should not want to be anything less than a 'fancy lady'.  
  
She heard a loud and forceful voice, suave with calculated sophistication and feigned courtesy. It was undeniably male and rich deserving attention and seeking nothing less than that which was undivided. She knew the voice well.  
  
He had always wanted to be a suitor to her, descending from a family of wealthy merchants. The family Champney, a powerful family living up to its name and possessing quite a few merchant fleets. Most of the men were hunters, and he was no different. In fact, he had been claimed by many provinces as the 'best hunter' they had ever seen and knew in a long while. And while it was true, he could drill bullets through the eye of a rabbit from near 50 yards, he was intolerable.  
  
He was inarguably one of the most arrogant and patronizing individuals that she had possibly ever came in contact with. His mind was set high, and humble was a state that was truly foreign to him. Being a revered hunter, in a comfortable social state, and possessing mind-boggling looks that made a majority of the large town's ladies swoon when he spoke to them in what she deemed, false courtesy, his arrogance had surmounted him.  
  
While thinking these thoughts, she absent-mindedly began humming the rhyme children near-by happened to be singing before she heard the loud voice clear and cut. Assaulting her ears, and causing her humming to stop abruptly, her thoughts broken up immediately by him.  
  
"You must forgive me, Belle. I have not spoken to you since last I had departed on a hunting expedition last week. Which I might say is a success, I managed to unsettle another deer head to place on my mantle. The best hunting bachelor in France." He ended suavely, stating the last line not was it was, an opinion, but to as what he saw it, a simple and assured fact.  
  
She looked at him, with his dark hair completed with a slight black curl toward the ends, and his thick and masculine dark eyebrows. His white teeth gleamed as he spoke and he kept himself clean-shaven, probably so that his stunning smile was not lost on the onlooker he happened to be talking to. The cleft in his chin, sometimes for some as a deformity was a positive in his appearance and his large and muscular build would be enough for any woman to feel secure in his presence.  
  
She did not feel what other women should feel. She had always known that, even as a little girl her thoughts had been different from others her age. One, she was taught to read, which was uncommon for a humble inventor- farmer-merchant daughter. Two, she had politely remained ambiguous when Monsieur Champney obviously was zealous on courting her. Familiar with his self-centered nature, she was sure that her mind was not what he saw in her. He was overbearingly chauvinistic, which most males were and most females supported them relentlessly; senselessly loving the chains that were bound to them.  
  
To her, reading was 'right' for a woman. It taught her to thwart the roles that males had confined her into by being illiterate, and it opened her mind to dreams and lands and possibilities she would have otherwise been deprived and starved of, if she had not learned the power of words.  
  
She kept quiet as he questioned her on her whereabouts, she told him the truth, she would be going to the _Marqueur Frais_ to sell her eggs as usual and then would head to the bookstore, this comment produced it's usual effect of the peculiar impatient gaze that would cross he handsome features and she prepared to hear his usual soft reasoning, which she considered as a lecture.  
  
"I blame those awful authors in Paris for fostering such radical ideas of the masses to read. Think! The poor to read, and women to read! You know, Belle, I see you as somewhat liberal. You are in fact, one of the only middle-class ladies I know that were never taught the pastimes of sewing and keeping company with other ladies. But I am sure, it was a part on your father, your mother passed early and so you were not taught most feminine tasks. But when you become my wife, darling, perhaps..."  
  
She laughed quietly to herself, which he thought she was enthralled by his clear message. In fact, she was laughing at his suggestion of her becoming his wife, rather his mistress. Marriage was to be mutual, and with one so self-obsessed, love would never be feasible in such a partnership.  
  
She understood his words and while he was silent for a moment, she spoke evenly with an abundance of patience. "My father has raised me well. You misunderstand him." His usual absent-minded attention was focused on her as she spoke.  
  
"Oh, I know he has, Mademoiselle Laroque," he dismissed her comment with a wave of his hand, and put his muscular arm around her shoulder lightly. "I supposed that such an striking and likely-looking female such as yourself would be wed one day and how awful would it be to any conforming and respectable male, such as myself though I forgot the attractive ingredient, that his beloved dearest should not have all the lady-like tendencies."  
  
"Marriage is not a priority for me at the moment." She replied, switching her book to her other hand, half-listening. Her lucid attitude should be clear-cut and defined to him, but his egotism allowed nothing more but acceptance.  
  
"But you are beautiful and at the age to marry. Some of your childhood companions, Faye, has been married for almost two years with a small child who will be a man like me some day..."  
  
"It would be trivial for me to follow Faye, because of what she has done. Conformists have little time for life, as they are always following what others have done." She finished, explaining herself fully.  
  
"You are independent, I like that. And quick-minded. It suits you," he glanced down at her, from looking around, obviously seeing everyone glancing up briefly to see them walking closely to each other and they made for an extraordinary pair. They were both terrifyingly appealing complete with confidence and strong minds. Popular shopkeepers shouted a 'Bonjour' to him, who waved as if he were the head of France, and not King Louis 15th in the royal palace at Versailles.  
  
The weight of his shoulder was becoming heavy and she almost asked him to remove it, but was relieved when he removed his arm himself and placed the basket in the front of the _Marqueur_ _Frais_, speaking condescendingly to the shop owner of himself, as he was always his best topic to talk about, he knew nothing else that fascinated his imagination and wit as better than himself.  
  
A few large coins were placed in her basket, but more had been placed in her basket. Noticing, Belle was ready to speak out, but her arrogant partner voiced that it was a humble donation. She nodded, her family was not poor but they were far from being affluent. She had objects that most girls in her position did not, three beautiful ballroom gowns and a beautiful bonnet, all had been given by a kind seamstresses who had always been barren and was widowed. She also read occasionally, and was lavish on Belle when she took her clothing articles to her shop.  
  
Stopping at the bookstore, she watched him leave abruptly. Perhaps he had an reaction to such places, in that case may he have a reaction to her also. At this point, being blessed with a great amount of endurance was a positive, from what she had heard and knew both of her parents had moderate levels of patience and so had she.  
  
The bookkeeper was pleasant enough to her, noting a few books new, having been brought in since he seen her last, a few days before. She was in regular attendance twice a week in the mid to late mornings to switch books and borrow more to satisfy her literary curiosity.  
  
She chose one fantasy bounded in hard and dark leather and one other fantasy bounded in dark red felt, a classic and her favorite. She read it every few months because it entranced her mind. An adventurous girl unsuspectingly meeting a Prince later in the literary work which she was always wanted to be. How dull her life paled in comparison to such adventurous works conjured in imaginative minds.  
  
She left the shop languidly, and opened a page, planning to read on her way back to her cottage. The bustle of the town around her withered away until she was quite clear she had become unconscious save for the book that fed her mind. She no longer heard the carriages, the shrill voices, nor the faint music of peddlers playing in the square for a few coins to sustain the lowly existence.  
  
Hearing the voices become louder, she pulled herself from her book, and turned around hearing nothing but the regular bustle, strangely she returned back to her book before hearing the loud voice of arrogance. He had obviously came back, probably to escort her home and say a sophisticated greeting to her father, who doted that he was a charming young man that Belle should keep company with.  
  
His conversation was dull enough but now she noticed that he obtained his unattractive, slightly overweight and mindless lackey to accompany him. LeFou. He was the son of an affluent merchant who chose to do nothing less than follow Gaston, his main influence and a poor role model, in her opinion.  
  
His conversation led to her father, as she grew impatient and evenly voiced that her father was in need of her help presently. The two laughed boisterously and began to speak with crude jokes and impolite jests, she impatiently chastised them. To which Gaston chastised his partner. Having to defend her father was something she honored, and could never comprehend why people did not understand him as she did.  
  
A loud clank followed by a boom and a thick cloud of black smoke seized her attention, and she turned to see the cloud being released from her own humble cottage. Turning her attention from the two jesters to her home, she fled them immediately, leaving Gaston and his silly friend to laugh after her.


	3. Inception to Equivocality

**Title**: Unworthy

**Author**: Rissa85-Stargazing85

**Rating**: PG13 to R

**Genre**: Angst, Drama, Romance

**Part**: _Part Two _(Inception to Equivocality)

**Disclaimer**: Yeah, I know that you know. I don't own any Disney characters.

**Author's Note**: I'm guessing this is going to be the part when...never mind, just read.

-----

It was a captivating story. A young maiden harbored disreputable revelations and was desperately attempting to conceal them from her future husband, all at the expense of the fear of propriety and favorable reception. Not as a rule one of her favorite genre of selections to read, she loved more adventures. But it was a different twist; a sort of subtle adventure and she loved variety.  
  
Her father had left the day before, another convention for innovations to be held a few miles past the _Forêt Noire_, and one that she never particularly was fond of. Frustratingly silly that she should be afraid of just a gathering of towering trees. But she had an active imagination, and always despised the darkness and the ensuing dubiety that darkness gave the territory.  
  
She heard some commotion outside and very close. Not the usual commotion that she heard during town hours. She ignored the noise, thinking that it was probably excess clamor from the continually excited hens or perhaps it originated from the usually tranquil goats in the stable. She almost thought to check them, but the manuscript was gripping.  
  
She read a few more pages before she heard five urgent raps at her door, each rapid and in succession with the previous. Certainly, it was not her father; he would've not knocked. Perhaps it was that he had been hurt. This began her imagination to conjure plausible and unpleasant conclusions, and she laid her book open on the wooden table before treading to the doorframe.  
  
Another one of her father's many inventions around his home. A sort of device, which let her see whoever was at the door before opening it. She had used it to her advantage at some points, not allowing Gaston to invite himself over. Being around him was taxing at best, and surely all but repellent at worse. She pulled the invention from its latch place near the door and looked into it.  
  
Much to her irritation, she saw attentive clear-water azure oculars peer in at her. She thought of backing away and remaining quiet, but she was sure he had seen her already and was sure that he would bring the occurrence forward the next she made contact with him. Bothered, she took one glance at her book before rolling her eyes and undoing the door lock.  
  
He opened the door and stepped in with so much ease and elegance that she had scarcely enough time to back away. He was dressed elaborately this afternoon in ruby, gold, ivory breeches, and his customary black boots all newly-shined. His overpowering frame caused her the usual uneasiness instead of comfort, and she forced a feasible smile, a guarded smile.  
  
She utter in feigned pleasantness that it was a satisfying amazement that he should visit her. In his condescending manner, he sold himself, claiming he was full of agreeable surprises, to which she thought few of the pleasant. She kept her smile, though her thoughts were satiated by annoyance and strained persistence.  
  
She brought her mind back to him; he was speaking of this peculiar day as one where her dreams would become alive. Dreams fulfilled, she had many dreams some more outlandish than others, and she kept them to herself. Despite her appearance, she had always realized that she was a very private person with a mind not easily understood by most.  
  
She questioned with amusement, about what did he know of her dreams. He sat back in the chair she had previously occupied, reclining and placing his enormous galoshes on her book, placing mud all over the place, and announcing his dream, of a humble cottage with his hunt on the fire, and his wife massaging his feet and something about 'little ones'. At present, she noticed the smell emitting from his boots, and she covered her nose.  
  
He inquired about her having quite the amount, of 'little ones' or dogs she pretended she was not sure and spoke questioningly of dogs. She knew that such masculinity in a male like him would do better with nothing but offspring, 'little ones', of males. Daughters of such men would either make him soften, which was impossible, or become second to the male in the female, which was a better possibility.  
  
He queried her on who the 'little wife' would be, and she almost felt herself saying that the 'little wife' would be a beautiful girl with as 'little' a mind as he had, but she bit her tongue and remained modest, carrying her book, attempting not to bring attention to her cleaning the mud off, and placed it in the bookshelf. It gave her more room to back away, he was becoming close.  
  
He exclaimed in his deep manly voice that the wife would be her. She kept her feigned modesty, as she headed toward the door, feeling him overpower her in such confines. Almost like a game of negligent cat-and-mouse, and she had never even as a child liked such animated games. She replied, neutrally, that she was quite astounded.  
  
He pressured her lightly, allowing for no other alternative but to say 'yes'. Instantaneously, she wished that her father were there, any one else besides just the two of them, against her door frame. She began fumbling with her words, his scent strong and thickly pleasant looming, she found the door latch just as she finished saying, with modesty, that she did not deserve him.  
  
She heard light music playing, and saw at once, a large table held with plenty of food, and a large amount of townsmen outside, waiting intently, speaking and a band playing near a large tree under the shade. The three triplets, pretty blonde girls, looked up starry-eyed at Gaston. She closed the door, once, but noticed his boots, and set them out as an after thought quickly.

-----

Someone was here. Someone uninvited. He had seen heard the shrill opening of the dark gates, shrouded in thick dense fog, as he stood quietly leaving his encased blossom and stood at one of the many balconies that the West Wing had. It was the Wing of the castle that presented the most balconies and the most mystery.  
  
It was Lady Chanelle's favorite Wing, it in fact, was her wing. Adorned with various portraits of the famous and influential of past centuries, gilded in gold, silver and bronze depending on the degree of importance. Various statues of ivory angels and of peaceable paintings of countryside and of the life of aristocracy had been plentiful.  
  
She was a great interior embellisher, expensive tapestries with the bold colors of light amulet and cream paired with the dark hues of dark goldenrod and midnight cerulean was some of her favorite tint combinations. And as she decorated her surroundings in this way, she dressed just as luxuriously and ornately in all sorts of silk, satin and lace all colored as brightly as her Wing.  
  
But when he had become overcome by the Enchantress' spell, the beautiful angels had turned to hideous gargoyles and the tapestries had darkened into tarnished and molded colors that no longer paired together, but ran together and clashed ruining the scene and lending a horrible effect. The pictures had changed from the regally important to heinous images of scathing serpents, framed in dark onyx rock.  
  
After seeing himself transformed, he had managed to break all the large mirrors his mother managed to place about. She had forever loved appearances and in these, thud seeing the unsightliness he had broken nearly everyone with his massive paws. One of the elaborate portraits he had had created, was one of the first articles he managed to slash with his claws. Pained he was, that he former self seemed to be gloating at him eternally in such a portrait.  
  
Presently, he heard voices in the hallway. It was an advantage to the Wing, the sound echoed from the tall castle entrance all the way to the West Wing, and he heard a masculine voice, humble and surprised, probably by the lack of gentleness and power that such a place exerted. He heard the shrill voices of the castle's various 'people', real persons enchanted, like himself, into various cutlery and objects, some more useful than others.  
  
He went to investigate maliciously curious, he had been led into the fireplace that he almost never himself attended. It was one of his father's most cherished rooms, and one of his orders was that it be kept to smell of the costly port that his father loved to drink and the cigars filled with opium that he used. It was a worthy of note odor that did not reek, but was not all-together pleasing.  
  
He smelled tea, as a rush of air accompanied him, extinguishing the light from the fireplace, he knew before he turned around the stranger had managed to wrap around himself the thick wool blanket not even he had touched since his father passed. A stranger had managed to invite himself in, and tamper with expensive articles that held to the heartless beast at least some forms of sentimental value. He could feel his customary anger and indignation.  
  
The cutlery grew scared, as most enchanted objects backed away or either scattered. The man was quaking now, and he brought his face to the stranger's, which was pale accompanied by hair with shades of gray, he was hair was thinning, and his eyes were astonished and filled with consternation. He mumbled about needing a place to stay, and for his insubordination, he paused at the aging man, before replying in a controlled voice that he had a place for him.

-----

She waited for an hour or so, until she heard the last dying commotion of the people outside before looking out of her door. She had managed to finish two more chapter in the thick manuscript before setting the book, still a little soiled from mud, on the table. She was thoroughly shocked, and a little restless the latter having no real cause.  
  
Gaston had proposed to her. After knowing him since he had settled with his family a few years ago, and having caught his attention then, he had finally proposed. Being thoughtful, she knew that one day his flirtation and closeness would lead to a proposal but the blatant way in which he praised himself all the while proposing to her, led her to believe his conceit as a liability to his personality.  
  
She stopped, imagining her life as Madame Gaston, dressed as sexily as the three triplet girls that followed him near incessantly, and waiting patiently for her 'loving' husband to come home from hunting so that she may pamper him and treat him like a King, consummating their marriage each night in her bedroom chambers, after all he was manly and at his prime. At this thought, she felt herself somewhat embarrassed.  
  
And although he was handsome, that was a poor excuse for wanting to marry. Almost as poor an excuse as marrying to duplicate the life of an old companion, marriage was too permanent to consider lightly and to take chances at. It lasted a lifetime and how awful it would be to spend a lifetime hearing Gaston boast of himself from the beginning of the ceremony to his grave, and she knew that it would be luckier for the wife, if she would die before he.  
  
Marriage was supposed to be that connected link between two like minds, full of love and passion that would make such a permanent cementation strong and able to survive years and years of life. Perhaps she had read too many fairy tales, but unless she felt that spark she read about, that led one to believe that one could find no other in a lifetime, she was sure she would die unwed. She now passed the farm and found herself on the meadow near the house, all adorned with fresh green grass and just passed the meadow was a steep hill that led to a tranquil and wide blue river. Most of the trees were beginning to shed their brightly-colored leaves, either red or golden or perhaps a slight red-orange, in time for the coming and merciless winter.  
  
Passed the river lay tall cliffs, almost canyons colored brightly in brown- reds, gold, and lush greens. She had never been as far as those picturesque canyons that stretched almost as far as she could see, seemingly to touch the sun as it lay on the horizon line, she often dreamed of going there, but having no reason was content to gaze upon it and imagine. And she had energetic thoughts.  
  
Often she wished that her vigorous imagination was understood entirely by herself and by others. Her ideas, though she never shared them with anyone, she knew, were almost as liberal and her father's inventions. She could not apologize for them however, her adventurous spirit and imagination was what made the core of her personality. And for her persona she could make no apologies. Still, it would be reprieve if someone could relate to her.  
  
She lay on the soft grass, and noticed the dandelions that were scattered about. She picked one, and realized she had been singing to herself, so very into her thoughts that she was not cognizant and she blew it lightly, seeing the feathery parts dance and fly into the light wind. Hearing a close neigh of a horse, strangely familiar, she looked up and saw Phillipe gallop across the plain agitated and highly dynamic.  
  
But as she saw her father's invention wrapped and unmoved as when he left the day before, and her father no where to be found, the harness still on Phillipe, she grew immediately worried. Something had happened, terrible. Almost wanting to panic, she felt her heartbeat travel and pulse swiftly until she was sure her heart was lodged in her head and not her bosom.  
  
She dislodged the harness, and placed it in the farm before retrieving her coat, and as she talked to animals, she knew Phillipe would know where father would be, as she asked Phillipe to take her to her father. This unfamiliar feeling of dread did not sit well with her and if anything had happened to her father, she was sure she would never let herself see the end of her culpability.

-----

Phillipe was brisk. And she noticed the thick fog that hung here. The _Forêt Noire_, unusually dense and chilly fog, almost something out of the radical frightening manuscripts that she was indifferent to. Wolves howled in the distance and the tall trees had blocked what ever remaining sunlight from the sunset to nothingness, causing the forest floor to look darkened. They had to hurry, it was quickly approaching night.  
  
Phillipe stopped at a very tall and wrought-iron gate, easily three times the height of her own house at its peak. It was a horrid looking castle, tall and thin in some places almost piercing the sky and not much shorter at others, reminding her uneasily of Gaston in the overbearing aura that set around the spiking towers complete with dark clouds that loomed over head looking as if rain was imminent.  
  
She looked around, and on the stone ground, she noticed a familiar brown hat. It belonged to Maurice, her father.


	4. Incumbent Dedition

**Title**: Unworthy

**Author**: Rissa85-Stargazing85

**Rating**: PG13 to R

**Genre**: Angst, Drama, Romance

**Part**: _Part Three_ (Incumbent Dedition)

**Disclaimer**: Sadly, to report that I know you've all got this message by now. But BatB is not mine. =(

**Author's Note**: Part Three, usually this is the place where I take a hiatus for a while. (Up to months!) But this story is not boring me, so I will continue for all those dedicated readers out there. I really am going to enjoy writing this part...

-----

_This place was colossal_, she thought, almost as intimidating as being present in those large cathedrals she had been but once in Paris, when her father took her to visit the grand Notre Dame he had her baptized in, a christening service that was not inexpensive and took an extensive time for her relatives to aid in paying the funds.  
  
But from her father, she had heard the plenty people had attended, her grandparents were, after all, some of Paris' citizens of importance. Her grandfather, Seymour Etienne, also known to some western provinces of the city as _Pointe à tracer officielle Laroque_, the official judicial scribe. He pulled in an adequate amount of funds he spent mostly on munificent leisure and banquets.  
  
Her father had grown in a very strained atmosphere. The unvarying stream of visitors that his father permitted to welcome under his roof, along with exorbitant renovations that never seemed to be quite finished had stressed him. Living in a large house that was incessantly functioning like a hotel and maturing in coercive intimacy with strangers had caused her father friction with his.  
  
His father wanted him to be a judge like himself, but Maurice was obstinate that his ingenious mind should lead his life elsewhere than in the western provincial department of Justice in Paris. He chose to live a quite lifestyle sustained by his own mind. Flabbergasted, his father and Maurice developed a tense relationship, characterized only by the monthly allowance Seymour sent to aid in his son's iconoclast lifestyle.  
  
Perceptibly, the person who owned and maintained this structure was undoubtedly effusive. It was dim here, but lighted with many candles that cast awkward-looking shadows on the walls, in the places where they were not covered with large portraits of important looking people.  
  
There seemed to be a plentiful amount of portraits around, framed in black onyx and some with odd pictures of serpents, while others where of fetching personas dressed luxuriously and carrying that presumptuous and supercilious smirk that expressed the core of their personalities.  
  
She called for her father a few times, there had to be someone here because it was warm here. Someone would've had to start the fire and kept the fire going to heat such a large structure as this one. Why hadn't anyone answered her up to this point, she could hear her own voice echo from the walls, someone had to hear them. She spoke again, attempting to state her cause for gallivanting around someone else's domain.  
  
Faintly, she felt cold and heard a distant rush of air in front of her a few feet by the large staircase covered by a scarlet rug and menacing black sculptures of beastly-looking creatures with serpents coiling around their bodies. Uneasily, she heard another rush of air, it had to have come from somewhere above her, but then she heard a door open behind her.  
  
She began speaking again, someone was here, perhaps it was the supernatural. As much as she wanted to postulate that apparitions could possibly be veritable in existence, she had been exposed to a majority of people, one being her father, who was not superstitious at the least and laughed wholeheartedly at the whole situation.  
  
Pausing tentatively, she opened the door wider. There were two directions, both dark and both made her feel at the very least, foreboding. This room was markedly different, it was nearly all stone, and to her left was a winding staircase, to her right was a dark corridor. All was silent, except for the intermittent rush of cold air and the sound of wind. She bit her lip before deciding on the dark corridor.  
  
She followed it through, with trepidation, this must be some sort of dungeon, it had to be. There were a few doors to the right of her and a couple of very large doors to the left of her, which all were bolted shut. Some bars at a few to her right were there, just enough to let a pair of hands through.  
  
The end of the corridor was near, with a forceful current of wind whipping at her cloak and tousling her dark hair, there were bars ahead, she noticed, and upon coming closer she noticed the sky behind them, with a few whips near the bars, and she noticed that above her head easily four times her height where all sorts of contraptions decorated with spikes, spears, and unraveled ropes.  
  
She turned, hearing an audible clank, the door she had came from had closed shut. She closed her eyes, feeling herself tremble and took herself away from the nearby bars, turning her back to them and walking swiftly to the door, speaking of her father's whereabouts. Attempting to open the door, but finding it would not open, she turned and drew herself, with trepidation, up the winding staircase.

-----

A female was here. He had heard her frolicking around the castle, in her feminine voice that bounced and echoed from the walls and toward the West Wing. She had declared something about her father, it must be his daughter then, which was looking for her. They both had the same crude manners, wandering into places that did not belong to them.  
  
Indignantly, he had watched from the fourth level over the railing, and saw her small form dressed in virginal white and soft cobalt, she had draped over her a navy hood that covered her head and dark shoes. She was valiant and inquisitive, the second attribution almost divulged as a given. He had followed her, from the fourth level, to the third, and stopped at the head of the second staircase, watching her every move, hearing her sounds down to her almost whispered monologue.  
  
He was slightly stunned to find that his thoughts had settled to his mother. Odd it was that she made him bethink to recollections of his passed mother. She did not look much like her, his mother's hair had been a blonde and with a fine grade of tresses that curled tremendously and so cleanly that she kept to a length that stopped at her waist. Chanelle had also been none to exploratory or questioning, and felt at ease in familiarity. Strange that he should seek reminiscences of her at the moment.  
  
The young woman had opened a door, the door to the Chambre de torture, and compulsively he slipped in, letting the door slam behind him, her father was to be found if she followed the sound he made. But he didn't want to speak to her, he felt errant compulsion to scrutinize her from afar. Without delay, he heard her stop and diffidently linger before whirling around and trudging swiftly toward his direction.  
  
Adroitly and noiselessly, he backed upward the staircase with swiftness, until he felt the end of the staircase coming, then he hid in a dark corner of the top of the staircase's elevated imprisonment cavity.

-----

The staircase seemed like it would forever be winding, until she was sure that she was going in circles. Minutes had passed and she was still walking, her limbs began to feel weary, and she paused looking ahead and relieved that the staircase had ended. It was very dark, and the torch she had managed to take with her from its position on one of the walls had supplied feasible light in the small space of the winding flight of steps.  
  
Here it was of little use, soft light had entered from an unknown source in a blank expanse of wrought iron bars that was centered above the room. She spoke again, with dwindling confidence, and heard her father's voice answer her back.  
  
She exclaimed her surprise, shivering and feeling his pale hands through the small opening of his bolted door. She peered in frenetically, noting his bluish-tinged lips and unfocused eyes. His limbs felt as if she were gripping the snow that tinged the French countryside in the middle of winter. She recoiled, before attempting to warm them herself.  
  
"Papa, I must get you from here! I...It's very cold, you must be freezing. Here, warm your hands by this torch." She placed the torch to the door and watched as her father placed his hands to it, dependably.  
  
"You must leave, Belle! I don't want you to be in here!" his command was preemptory and final, emitting all the finality that an authoritative figure could muster while his effectiveness was severely curtailed by his handicapped position.  
  
"Who's done this to you? You must tell me...What happened?" she questioned, recoiling as she at length noticed the deep scratches that ran from his wrists to his elbows, four deep scratches, hardly healed.  
  
"You must leave, Belle." Her father spoke slowly with all the energy of someone who has been deprived of rest and food. As her father spoke thickly and with as much energy as he could congregate, she knew her answer.  
  
"I want leave you, Papa. Not until I find who's done this to you. I'll search all over the castle until..." she felt a massive dark hand grasp the back of her hood and veer her about with so much force that she now faced the direction of the intruder, her torch had been flung into a patch of damp collected water at the far side of the cavity. "What are you doing here!" He questioned, severely.  
  
"Run Belle!" her father commanded, nonsensically.  
  
She noticed a dark and outlined figure, glide toward her father's locked door and she fretfully inquired, "Who are you?" turning her head swiftly, following the form and clutching her hooded cloak about her. She moved nearer to her father, instinctively, almost as if she were endeavoring to panoply him.  
  
The stature of this, this cumbrous creature was so prodigious that she felt infinitesimal just being near to it. Fangs gleamed ivory and sharp, even in the dimness of the poor light that she was becoming adjusted to. He answered her in a tone that was ultimate and with puissance that seemed unabridged. "The master of this castle."  
  
She hesitated before rejoining, "I've come for my father. Let my father go please, can't you see he's sick." She ended her request in a plea, her father remained unenthusiastically hushed and she looked back, thinking him unconscious until she realized he stared out at her vacantly. She turned from him, having not the courage to look into his eyes.  
  
The creature had a voice that boomed and was tinged with irritability and retort. "He shouldn't have trespassed here. No matter how exemplary the reasons!" He turned to the staircase, having no qualms of conscience about leaving them both here alone without light or fire.  
  
She began again, "But he's in poor health, he could die. I'll do anything." She begged, with all the desperation of a prisoner wishing for life while being placed on the threatening gallows. He spoke to her quickly, citing there was nothing that she could do to release him.  
  
Entreating again, she, with desperation, hurriedly spoke to herself speedily. "There must be some way...Wait." She lowered her head, they had not much to offer him financially, and their possessions were trinkets compared to his opulence. But perhaps, she could free her father... "Take me instead."  
  
He stopped abruptly, "You," he tone became soft, "You would...take his place?" The generousness of her character was not lost on him and he felt near a measurable amount of obeisance to her. Though reluctant he was to feel so.  
  
She paused, "If...If I did. Would you let him go?" He turned, and in her bright orbs, he saw the irresolute but guarded expectancy of an innocuous child. He sauntered up to her in his full height exposed to carry more weight with his statements.  
  
"Yes." he desisted before continuing, thinking of her advantage to himself. "But...you must promise to stay here forever." He presented the brusque veracity of the situation to her, not feeling coarse enough to deceive her into a naïve and ensnared incarceration.  
  
She bit her lip, and found that her voice no longer quaked. Remarkable how necessity seemed to calm the mind to become rational. She instructed him blankly and intrusively. "Come into the light."  
  
He stepped into the nearby light gradually, the light showing his sharp, salient and malevolent talons, his ill-kempt and burnt sienna-brown fur, his paramount height, the jutting fangs, and the maroon cloak that covered him. She took all of these descriptions and let them build in her mind before she gasped, and closed her eyes tightly holding her father's hands, as if they could save her from her circumstances.  
  
"No, Belle! I won't let you do this!" Her father shook her hands attempting to let some weight fall into his statement. She stared at her father's hands, it was he who had raised her, taught her, loved her in spite of her Spanish-Moor blood that a few of her relatives had hissed about, that a few of their relatives had spoken about.  
  
It was he that loved her, cared for her, surrendered with some difficulty his relaxed and satisfactorily bachelor lifestyle for her. She felt as if she had taken enough from him, she obliged him much, at least this much that she was planning to immolate. A question appeared in her mind to contemplate: Was she contemptible of him?  
  
She stood and held her head high, already the tightness in her chest and throat causing her eyes to sting. She closed them, not wanting to appear frail and wishing she could deliver all the confidence that she had seen the pictures in the hallways incorporate. "You have my word."  
  
Her father's words at once seemed remote and futile, the situation seemed surreal, comparable to when one was underwater and looked under around still immersed. She dropped to her knees, letting her decision coagulate and she felt the tears on the edge of her lashes, her eyes still closed.  
  
Her father. He was holding her, muttering that he was elderly had lived his life to its peak, but was hushed when the Beast took her father by the back of his hood and dragged him away. It was as if life sparked in her again, and she spoke out, "Wait!" twice in succession, but to no avail.  
  
She flew to the window, hearing her father's words echo back to her about sparing her, letting her free. And then muffled, she heard the low tones of the Beast, with menacing brutality. She felt her tears slide down her cheeks languidly, and she closed her eyes and breathed erratically.  
  
It had to be suppositious. An insufferable anguish such as she was experiencing could not be fit for reality. She looked down, seeing nothing but thick fog and a wide expanse of concrete that was held up by columns whose length ran into dense and cinereal fog. The height she was at had to be rather high, for she could feel the wind and the ensuing iciness.  
  
Standing there stationary looking out, her head pounding, her tears stinging cold on her heated cheeks and her red-rimmed and wet eyes, it would seem as if she was not real. A shell of a human, broken by decision and weakened by anguish. But she forfeit her lifestyle for his, a life for a life. Her mother had given her life to deliver her, her father had sacrificed his life to attend to her. Perhaps it was principled that she should capitulate hers.  
  
But with her altruism was what she placed as some degree of self-regard. She had not gone in ten years a day from her father, and now she was not to see him again perpetually. Her eyes watered again, and she attempted to inhibit her tears before they wavered and fell from her dark lashes.


	5. Retrospection on Chanelle

**Title**: Unworthy

**Author**: Rissa85-Stargazing85

**Rating**: PG13 to R

**Genre**: Angst, Drama, Romance

**Part**: _Part Four_ (Retrospection on Chanelle)

**Disclaimer**: =( -You know what this symbolizes.

**Author's Note**: I should really quit with the Disclaimer, I think everyone gets it by now. Now this is always the fun part of the story. I love this part in the movie sometimes I have to watch it and do 4-5 repeats. =) So much opportunity for imagination, I'm trembling. I guess mine will be running wild this chapter. Thank you all for your great reviews. **TrudiRose**, **Kates**, **Serengeti** **Dawn** -Thanks for _all_ your immensely helpful reviews. This is the part of the story, finally, were I stop being a Sports Broadcaster for the movie, and develop my own ideas...sort of.

-----

With suddenness, she saw a bizarre contraption, moving about like an arachnid on that wide strip of stone that disappeared into hazy inscrutability. She looked about her, her view still misty, there were gargantuan piles of sodden straw at either end of the small and impersonal dungeon. Dismal words were etched into the stonewalls. _Insomnie_, _Désespoir_, _Mort_. All of them signifying the same sort of emotion. Dejection.  
  
She heard scratches ascending the flight of steps. The Beast was heading toward her, and she felt the glacial wind envelop her. Now she grasped the depth of fright and chilliness that her father had experienced. It was almost as if the cloak did nothing and she was just sitting on the frosted floor only in her thin chemise.  
  
In her peripheral vision, she could see his talons. She wanted to speak to him, question him why he didn't let her say good-bye to her father, spend a few minutes with him before his untimely leave. But the monstrosity she saw, and the overwhelming fear that she felt kept her from being verbal.  
  
She gazed down at the wool, sapphire-hued cloak. It still held the scent of her father's cologne, the cloak had been his. She clutched it tighter about her, almost as if it would bring back her father. It only served to bring back an accelerated flow of memories, some as far back as she could remember and some as recent as the past weeks. Those memories that she cherished; to live the rest of her lifetime with her mind crucified by them.  
  
"I'll show you to your room." His voice was imposing. She was surprised, she did not know what she should anticipate but it was not another atmosphere. She was definite that she would be spending the greater part of what was left as a meager existence, in a wretched tower without light and fire, such as her father had been held.  
  
She stood inflexibly, the wind more tempestuous and giving her fingertips, face, and arms the feeling of numbness. Behind him, taciturn, she cast her head down, somehow her poise had been decimated. She did not wish to retrieve it, for it served no purpose her. As gigantic and arresting as he, he should desire a complacent prisoner. And having little to sustain her, she intended to be one, if only to make it easier for her to manage.  
  
Her darling father. Making his way to a home without her. She had always felt a sort of emptiness in her home, even with her father there. Half of her heritage had passed and now, with both ladies in the home gone, how would her father keep up? She would gladly send him correspondence from the castle, if only to see his familiar and scratchy handwriting scrawled across the _Laroque_ stationary. But asking the Beast for permission would lead to a circumstance that she could not deduce a pleasant conclusion.  
  
It almost made her eyes water when she stepped from the aloof dungeon into the semi-familiar warmth of the rest of the castle. The door behind her latched, without any help from either her or the Beast, and she gaped back at it before following the Beast, keeping a distance from him. It was morbidly noiseless and sinister for all the impressive embroidery they were trudging on, all maroon and gold and detailed with clashing onyx hellions.  
  
She had been instructed in a religion where hellions and serpents such as the ones she saw on the walls and in the sculptures, where linked with sin and suffering. The fall of Man had been attributed to serpents. And this caused her imagination to wander, perhaps the fall of the Beast in front of her had its cause allied to such an odious creature. Certainly, beings like him were not conceived that way. Or perhaps...  
  
Papa had always made it a ritual, since as far as she could recollect, to drop to one's knees and pray before sleep each night and during supper. It had always jaded her until she was mature enough to comprehend what she was doing, but even when she did not understand, he was stern with her. _Religion_, she remembered from a faraway sermon, _will be release_.  
  
Perhaps there were only two elements that he had ever been unpleasant with her. Practicing religion and her mother. She had never even known her mother's name, the bookkeeper had not even known it, and she had never pressed her father for information, because she did not like to see his solemn expression. Her eyes began to water once more.

-----

He glanced out of his eye's corner and saw her bowed head, her hushed tears that slid down her face, and her changed composure. When she had walked about the castle, prying for her father, he had noticed her probing enthusiasm and poise. Now, she kept her head cast down, her poise had altered.  
  
Her decision was still imprinted in his mind, along with the feelings of reverence and astonishment. She was exclusively self-sacrificing and strong- minded, though her small frame and feminine voice did not reveal her venerable personality. He cast a glimpse behind him once more, seeing her exterior.  
  
She was notably gorgeous with full and thick chestnut-brown hair that stopped where her corset should begin. Her nose was small and the tip was slightly rounded, and her full lips were coral-hued and with a slight pout. Her step was light and agile, and though she was not tall, her slender and once poised character had made her seem so. Most of the stunningly attractive women he had come in contact with during his lifetime were the utmost of selfish and the majority had been extremely wealthy. Perhaps her station in life had caused her to be humble.  
  
Her eyes fluttered and at once he turned his head forward again, feeling a foreign emotion. Guilt. Not even when he had been enchanted did he feel such way. In all essence, the only thing he felt had been resentment at the Enchantress dressed in jade muslin and silk that billowed. In all his ten years of imprisonment in a grotesque form, he did not feel remorse. Only antagonism at the Enchantress and his form, he had not modified his personality much at all. It was as if he was the same person he had been ten year before.  
  
His mind voyaged to the past, the last time he had felt contrition. When his mother had passed, _Madame Montague_, the lovely woman with impeccable manners and married to royal blood with spiraling straw-colored locks that cascaded down her back like a golden waterfall. Her eyes had been verdant and lenient, the rare times that she was severe; her voice never rose or fell in tone. She had been all which had brought him to his feet in his youth.  
  
He had joked with ferocity accompanied by his elite companions about her, noting her lack of blue blood and her 'commoner' origins. They often teased him in ill will, bitingly calling him 'half-rabble', when his near uncontrollable temper surfaced. His friends themselves were the sons of notable earls, dukes, and of other landed gentry.  
  
The form behind him was probably more magnanimous than his mother, as sacrilegious as it sounded to him. Casting away her life so that her elderly father might live in freedom. She had crucified herself for her father, and caused him to think. He must speak with her stunning character, closing his eyes and thinking of his persecuting remorse.  
  
A soft whisper from the golden holder he was grasping spoke to him in near- silent tones. _Conseiller royal à la providence Lumiere_, royal advisor, having been turned to a candle-holder since the far-off Enchantment. Since childhood he had known Lumiere, nephew of a humble governess and only a few years older than he. From his youth, he remembered Lumiere as suave and refined, and found no trouble in conversing with ladies or drawing them to him.  
  
"Say something to her." He pressured, in the same smooth voice that always fell easy on ears and appealed to females in romantic tones. Though he was a royal advisor, the Beast could always recollect that he had often conversed with him, during the inactive times at the numerous balls that Chanelle held. His advice was usually correct and nothing to be ignored if one wanted pleasant results.  
  
He informed her with vacillation, strange that she should plunder him of his influential confidence, all the while her aura was nothing imperious and everything of dispiritedness and resignation. "I...I hope you enjoy your life here....This place is your home now, you are free to roam wherever you wish, except the West Wing." He turned to look back at her and noticed her eyes were a deep russet, fringed with dark lashes that were long and thick.  
  
She had a curious glint in her eyes as she spoke to him, "What's in the West Wing?" she questioned in her feminine voice, meekly losing its despondency. She was valorous for questioning him, and on such a subject.  
  
The thought of her prying hands on the imported and precious tapestries, all coordinated by _Madame Chanelle Montague_, led his serenity to snap without delay. And he felt the vehemence near what he experienced when he saw her father wrapped in the cloth that belonged _Monsieur Leverette_. He answered as rapidly as the thoughts that entered his head. "It's forbidden!" he spoke with passion and dynamism, turning around and glowering at her from his height.  
  
Her intrepid curiosity was shattered, and he saw in her the loathsome fright that he often saw in his servants when he raised his voice. For a fraction of a second he saw the fright, then it was replaced by her docility and quietness as before. Impulsively, he wished he could take back his outburst so that the becoming intrusiveness would resurface on her lovely features. But he had learned- To undo the past was unattainable.  
  
He led her to the second floor of North Wing, descending several flights of steps and through corridors. He had no idea, essentially, of what room he was give to her, just so that it may be farther from the West Wing, and the South Wing, which had belonged to his father. The woman that was walking behind him was soundless, if he had not known better he would think that it was only he walking by himself.  
  
The door, that he came to a halt at, was one that covered him with dread. It was the room his mother had often wandered to when she would sleepwalk in the dead of night. It was a beautiful room, the first she had decorated when she married _Monsieur Montague_, it was the first room she stayed in before embellishing the West Wing. He often found himself swigging spirits, the times when contrition overwhelmed him, in this very room. He commanded that it be kept smelling of her perfume and of peppermint, a smell that instantaneously reminded him of her.  
  
Unlatching the door for her, he watched her walk in, holding the cloak about her as tightly as one would wield a cross in front of a vampire. She was very still with her back toward him. He spoke soothingly, venturing to be gallant toward her. "If you are in need anything, my servants will wait on you."  
  
He saw Lumiere nod and then urge more from him. He was annoyed that she should command without so much as word such chivalry from him, it was as if all it took was her presence to almost make him deferential to her. It irritated him, that she was capable of unwittingly ravaging his insouciance.  
  
He drew himself up, attempting to make up for his uncharacteristic courtliness, and ordained riotously. "You will meet with me for dinner....That is not a request!" he slammed the door promptly, but not before seeing her straighten impertinently and square her shoulders.  
  
He felt something detached and cool drape over him, and he closed his eyes. Her defiance reminded him so much of his mother it stunned him. During her time as Mistress of the castle, he had but one time see someone act insubordinately toward her. As a small child, he had heard plenty of his father's elite companions speak of her discourteously, and upon hearing them speak one would think they were referring more to a impure and salacious harlot than the wife of royalty.  
  
The one time he had heard a servant dare to provoke his mother, he had been sitting at her feet as she read to him. In her soft tone, she questioned a servant on the whereabouts of the _Le Roi Leverette_, she was formal, even after years of marriage. In a slanderous voice, the maid had replied that perhaps he could be found either in the embrace of opium or in the embrace of another concubine.  
  
His mother, asking the servant in a low and vicious tone to follow her out of the room, left him sitting on the floor. All the while he heard his mother's always composed but now vicious voice, and then a distinct and forceful slap. Subsequently followed by the hurried patter of heels across polished and gleaming marble. The servant, with a face bright red against an ashen complexion, replied stoically that his mother had retired immediately and that he should read and continue his studies alone.  
  
She had remained defiant, through during the marriage, where she was occasionally the brunt of crude banter among the propertied classes. And her obstinacy to nothing less than respect made her admirable to him, and toward his latter years-he began to esteem her strength.  
  
It was the same strength which had made him flashback to his mother that he had seen when the young woman now in his confinement had shown. Though in her position she was lesser to him, she still held herself in esteem.  
  
But it pained him to see that she was now inhabiting the same room he had often drank spirits in, the room he had often slipped unconsciously into drink because of his mind-splitting remorse. Another cool drape of air passed over him, and he opened his eyes before fleeing back to the West Wing.


	6. Humanity Obscured

**Title**: Unworthy

**Author**: Rissa85-Stargazing85

**Rating**: PG13 to R

**Genre**: Angst, Drama, Romance

**Part**: _Part Five_ (Humanity Obscured)

**Disclaimer**: See parts prior.

**Author's Note**: I am writing this as I just finished this part of the story. I tried to make the story sound smoother, especially from someone else's perspective later on in this part. Keeping the vocabulary sprinkled lightly, just enough to season the fanfiction. =) It took longer to update because I've been busy so this part is longer than any of the others to make up for it. Enjoy and thanks for the reviews!

-----

Perfume and spirits. It was a preternatural combination of scents, nothing revolting; but certainly not exceedingly pleasant. Feminine and masculine, both mingled together but clashing as well. Much like her and her _Maître_, for that was what that creature was to her now. She was to answer him, in all the ways that a servant would satisfy its owner; for prisoners were nothing but a deplorable form of humanity in arrears.  
  
She looked around again, eyes rimmed red, and head splitting from incessant weeping. The room was nothing she envisaged, but then again the outcome of the day was out of the reach for her preceding introspective expectancy. From a marriage proposal to a state of depraved existence. Both had the potentiality of decapitating her dreams. Her percipience. Her life.  
  
At once, her short-term memory assailed her mind, and agitatedly she thought of the book she had been reading. Perhaps what she had become clever at when she was younger would play into her hands. Inebriating her mind with concepts that were less harsh than many others had been- the vestiges of a mother, her hostile paternal family, emotions of mystification. It had always been much more unproblematic to delve into the lives of other characters than her own. Perhaps now, it would aid her.  
  
Attempting to recapture thoughts of the book she had read earlier, which seemed to be many years past than only a few hours, was operose. So much in fact, that she could not meditate her mind. It seemed the more intense she wanted to not ponder of her situation, the more her memories rushed. She felt almost as if her head were a chimney with dark fumes of thought spilling from her to the rest of the room, clouding the atmosphere with her remembrance.  
  
She then realized that in her weeping stupor, she had trudged her way to the canopy bed, all adorned in soft satin and embroidered linen. Her head, was in fact, resting its heated self on the satin pillows that cushioned her head, seeming to know her heartache and trying to invigorate her. Sighing she looked up, the top of the canopy was brass and somewhat elevated, reminding her of the silhouette of the castle.  
  
Arising, she noted the dark azure and irradiated marble that covered the floor. But above the marble was a gorgeous rug, almost covering the glossy floor, and complete in a light cerulean with intricate woven threads of yellow enwrapping a multitude of colored flowers. Florets, which were as life-like as the distant portrait of her mother, she had seen as a child.  
  
There was a door, near the large and clarion window, that was partially open, and from what she could see was a broad and ivory porcelain tub. There were two dressers, one with doors as tall as her, and another half as tall but her height in width. They were both beautiful mahogany wood that looked pristine and illuminated even with their dark color in the faint light.  
  
A vast painting the took up quite the amount of space above the dressers, was framed in silver that reflected the poor light from even the shadows. It was a soothing picture, and by gazing upon it she felt an immediate aura of calm. A dark balcony that overlooked what seemed to be a vast dark forest, a sky decorated with stars that glistened even in the picture, and a soft golden light that came from beyond the picture that illuminated the one individual on the balcony just enough. It seemed the figure was the silhouette of a lady, with long hair to her waist that wounded moderately. Slender, tall, and in a outline of a ball gown.  
  
The painting seemed almost too realistic, as if she had emerged herself into the eyes of someone else. And she tore her eyes away. Peculiar that he should give her such a beautiful room, when in fact, she was only his prisoner. And had only the power to answer to his every desire. Unconventional that the room emitted such a smell, ineluctable but in a sort of gentle dominance.  
  
It was not a room that would be given to a normal prisoner. And she paused, thinking. Perhaps he wanted her not as a prisoner, but perhaps as a mistress, as a trapped concubine. All prisoner in respect to anyone that would have been held in the dungeon, but even less because she was subjected to whatever whim he was to feel.  
  
Misinformed and naïve was what she was not. And while she, herself, was not a whoremonger, her mother had been. And as sheltered a child as she, she know what those had been. A few trips to Paris, one even as recent as a few years before, she had remembered the brightly-dressed ladies that wafted through the streets in provocative clothing that showed a tad too much skin even in the bright light of day.  
  
She thought to her mother, trying to sustain herself through something other than imploration. Resorting to prostitution to attain essential necessities and obtain the luxuries that she had grown in, selling what she could get money for. And seeing the picture as a child, her mother had not been ugly even by the most critical eyes. Integrity lost for an occupation that delivered no approbation, all to preserve the remnants of an entity.  
  
Sporadically, when she mused of her mother's past, she wondered how her mother had transformed her life from one of harlotry to one of the married life. There was a disgraceful discongruity, of course. But the question seemed too risqué to even think of, much less inquiring someone of it.  
  
She shuddered, thinking of herself being reduced to the concubine of a Beast. Subjected to his every whim, his every desire. A reduction of her integrity, a decapitation of her dreams, losing her self-respect. But what position was she in to refuse him? He was so powerful he could end her life by snapping her neck with the flick of his wrist. But...  
  
Remembering his tone of voice, specifically when she desperately requested to pledge her life to his castle, she had took note of its softness in his inquiry. When she had questioned of the West Wing, she looked at his face as he had glanced back to inform her, guarded was his eyes whispering of refinement. Perhaps she had plucked a chord of benevolence.  
  
For her sake, she believed in the latter. That she had brought out the vestiges of generosity in him. For the former contemplation deduced melancholy thoughts that would contriturate her already relentless heartache.

-----

He stirred, hearing the seemingly distant voices of male banter in the tavern. All resounding and intoxicated, all boisterous and masculine, some cultivated and most of them cloddish. All companions of him, that looked up to him. He who had been disgraced early in the afternoon by her, was nothing short of an idol in their eyes.  
  
It seemed that the marriage proposal would be preposterously in her favor. The most handsome and masculine man in the village, best hunter in over ten French provinces, and a most eligible bachelor to be wed to a meek inventor's daughter capturing the utmost respect to humankind, all filled with kindness, and looks that would hold even the most finicky man panting.  
  
She did, in fact cause him to stir late in the evening hours. Her light form, lengthy chestnut-brown hair, and dark eyes that were bright and lively, her small waist, and soft pink lips that were full. Certainly, she did cause a conflagration that he always desired to possess, to claim that he had acquired her, and to quench his fire. Often, when he was in Paris, he would rent various mistresses and once, even attempted to imagine that it was Belle he had in his custody. It did little to him, except to make him want her more. Especially when she was in his proximity.  
  
Such as in the early afternoon, hours before, when he had managed to corner her against her front door, her hot breath against his face, her feminine scent mingling with his mannish cologne. He had wanted to press his lips against hers, press her body against his, wanting to satisfy himself. But he only received humiliation and thick mud that had ruined his look and completed his embarrassment.  
  
How dare she refuse him! He was being generous, offering her the lifestyle that he lived, trips to Paris, all over France, on the arm of a man that could protector and caress her. They would be the most striking couple in provincial France, youthful and self-possessed, both beautiful, both serving as examples of strength. He was showing it, in muscles, and she, in prettiness.  
  
He held the large mug of ale in his left hand, bringing his lips to it, and swallowing near half the contents. Drink would suffice for his humiliation until he figured another way in which a proposal might reap more positive results. No was not a word he heard often, especially from women. Why, in Paris, he spent much time visiting ladies who were zealous about entertaining him, all wealthy and powdered in satin and jewels.  
  
Even three years before, when he had become new to physical encounters with women, he had been propositioned about it. The first had been a wealthy and blonde young woman, two years older than he, and sophisticated enough to tempt him instead of he tempting her, which was the normal order now. The experience had been thrilling, and put him into a powerful trance that clouded his mind for a few moments, a feeling that seemed otherworldly.  
  
The women in town, though he lusted after few, save for a certain stubborn brunette, did not stimulate him. The three triplets with the same shade of straw-colored locks, all three dressed provocatively and in bright colors, stirred little in him. They would be too easy to secure. He needed a challenge. But was foreign to being answered in the negative.  
  
All together, his experience with that brunette reminded him of hunting. Setting a proper range, concentrate, feel the suspense, find the proper position, being discreet, taking the position, and letting go. Instantaneously feeling the important rush that accompanied hitting a target, feeling the rush of triumph. He had not thought of his proposal as a challenge but more of a moderate catch. Perhaps he had been too cocky, planning the wedding before he proposed.  
  
But he could not place the blame on his self but on her. She had refused, made him feel his importance with her modest smile, but made him feel his weight in humiliation by rejecting him. He had felt something less than human when she had rebuffed him, letting him fall into the mud.  
  
He took another swallow of the moderately costly ale and swallowed the rest of the mug, throwing it in the fire as his assistant brought more to him. LeFou, he was the son of a vague priest in Marseilles, training for an apprenticeship in blacksmithing and doing poorly.  
  
He looked up to him, Gaston, especially. And questioning him on more ale, Gaston responded negatively. Ale did not help him dispel his thoughts, only clouded them lightly and made them unclear. He turned his chair, hearing LeFou loudly attempt to cheer him up, stating all of his celebrated attributes.  
  
Exhaling, he looked around at the gazing faces, all bright with anticipation of any certain comment that would assure them of his greatness and he stated loudly of his decorations of antlers, all the animals having been killed by him, all the animal heads in the _Taverne Rose_, redounding to his credit.  
  
The familiar rush of importance and of prominence entered his mind, and he wafted his eyes over all the admirable gazes. He was powerful, he was not to be humiliated, and he would think of a plan that would work so that she would be his, to show everyone that he would not be embarrassed and always would get positive results in the end.

-----

Something moved out of the corner of her eyes. Her dresser, it was moving. The lights flickered on, and a lady's voice was behind the door. Looking up from her recent weeping, she opened the door, expecting to see someone, but noticing only a pot that hopped across the marble and the rug. Almost as if she was living a dream. Objects that could converse.  
  
"But, but you're a..." she stuttered, bewildered. She sat on her bed, noticing the moving dresser, a lady's voice that spoke in a moderate pitched voice, rested itself on her bed, causing it to dent.  
  
She rested on her knees, and looked at the porcelain pot, reminding her faintly of her grandmother in her softer moments, when her mother was not the topic of atrocious conversation and when her gentleness resurfaced. The pot was porcelain with a bullion handle and lavender, rose, and azure decorations. She introduced herself. Mrs. Potts.  
  
"That was a very brave thing you did, my dear." Mrs. Potts spoke softly, in the maternal voice that she had always wanted to hear, a voice that soothed and calmed just by the tone, never mind noticing the words.  
  
"But I lost my life, my dreams, my father. Every thing." She muttered quietly, to Mrs. Potts, feeling as if she had an audience. A smaller cup, announced himself to her as Chip the son of Mrs. Potts, bounded over, filled with tea for her.  
  
Thanking Mrs. Potts and Chip both, she took a sip before he questioned rhetorically if she would like to see a trick. Suddenly, her tea bubbled, and he was quickly admonished by his mother, who commented that everything would be right in the end and mentioned dinner while her and her son leaped out.  
  
The dresser had set a beautiful gown out for her, a moderate verdant and white, with ivory bell sleeves, and a green bodice that tied with white strings in the front. Dressing libidinously was not something she loved to do, as she glanced over at the green satin, it was very low cut, and probably troublesome to don. At once, she decided since she was not being pained by hunger at any rate, it would be unfeasible to attend dinner.  
  
"You'll look lovely in this." The dresser's voice was vibrant and trusting, seeming to aggrandize and compliment. All buoyant and jovial and upbeat. "It's a lovely green, I considered satin...." She trailed to herself.  
  
"That's very kind of you, but I'm not going to dinner." Belle shook her head self-effacingly, attempting to stop the conversation so that she may wallow in her own thoughts for a while before retiring.  
  
In a voice that sounded alarmed and anxious, the dresser replied. "But dear, the Master... you must!" A sienna-colored clock made of wood and gold pieces bounded in, proclaiming that dinner was finished and the Master was awaiting her presence. She paused tentative, not wanting to incur his hostility, but not wanting to face him.  
  
It would be in her favor to not speak with him at the moment. She dwelt momentarily, glimpsing at the satin dress, at the dresser, then at the clock silently. Biting her lip, she closed her eyes. Attempting to recapture semblance of strength. Vigilantly, she began to declare. The consequences of her insubordination did not seem execrable to her as much as facing him all while trying to feed a stomach that was not ravenous. Indubitably, he would not keep her in the dining hall when it was impractical.  
  
She shook her head with ease, seeing the attentive gaze of the clock, and feeling the scrutiny of the dresser as she spoke. "I won't be going to dinner, tell the him that. I can't possibly attend, I am not hungry nor feeling well." There was a composite stillness, then the clock backed away gradually, questioning her on the assurance of her choice. When she did not modify her preference; he left.  
  
The weight of the atmosphere had suddenly appeared to be ten times as heavy as before. The thickness of uneasiness, trepidation, and commiseration upon her had appeared and settled, crushing the atmosphere and making her feel at the very least perturbed and uncomfortable. Perhaps she would be exposed to his temper, he had declared that she would be present at dinner as a directive. She had defied him, she knew so, and she would answer to him. She was his captive.


	7. Not Veraciously So

**Title**: Unworthy

**Author**: Rissa85-Stargazing85

**Rating**: PG13 to R

**Genre**: Angst, Drama, Romance

**Part**: _Part Six_ (Not Veraciously So).

**Disclaimer**: Stated already.

**Author's Note**: I've gotten into the habitat of writing the Author's Note at the end of writing the part. This part is an introduction to a slight variation I've made in the story. It'll still follow the same storyline as the movie, somewhat. But I've added my own spice, of course. I tried not to put so many gigantic words, frankly, I'm getting tired of looking up every third word. But don't worry, I'll keep the vocabulary seasoning light to moderate. This is the longest part I've wrote to date, hope you enjoy it. =)

-----

Traipsing from one end of the dining hall to the other, he growled. She was overdue, as preemptory as his bidding had been; he was amazed that she did not disembark more swiftly than he. At once, he remembered her orbs pervaded with dismay and her subdued posture, showing the whole fortitude of one that had been condemned to penance at the pillory.  
  
Initially, he had scheduled dining to take place in the hall of the East Wing, nearer to her, and the opposite of the West Wing. But he was unfamiliar enough in that Wing which served him no real function, except an excursion to the realm of the now repentant but once meretricious. The power he executed over her had given him an odd sense of refreshment, but somehow the East Wing had always stripped him of his condescension and made him feel the loss of supremacy and fearlessness. Guilt. It was a silly emotion, but an emotion nonetheless.  
  
The dining hall of the West Wing. He had not been in attendance frequently as a child, and less as an adult. Forthrightly, it was a room unrestrainedly garnished with dozens of colored satins, silks, brocades, crystals, and exotic woods and brass. As most of the West Wing had been pretentiously ornamented, its two dining rooms had been no different. The larger one, which could serve nearly one hundred guests, was toward the northern part of the Wing. The one he chose to have dinner in was the smaller one, enough to seat five, and the place where his mother often ate with he and with his father when he was sedate.  
  
Contrasting with the larger dining hall, this one was markedly more personalized and more suited toward comfort than presentation. The moderately sized mahogany dining table with legs carved with flower buds and vines, the fireplace with rich golden brocade draped over the mantel, and the high ceiling with two large paintings over opposite walls made for a snug setting. She had always loved tranquility and the two paintings emitted the sentiment.  
  
The painting, adjacent to the wall opposite the fireplace, was one of a streaming and sapphire brook, teaming with life and silver fishes that were just below the water's rushing surface. The bank was overgrown with fresh green grass that was neatly trimmed, and just beyond the grass was when the land elevated to a hill that hid what was beyond from view. The sky was left, that was a tangerine-yellow fading to an intense indigo further away, entirely cloudless.  
  
The other painting, on the opposite wall of the river painting, was of an open field full with fresh grass and stray colored leaves, all shades of lemon, olive and scarlet. Deer were grazing peacefully while rabbits were at their feet, white and small compared to the size of the deer. In the background were tall trees whose tops could not be seen past the picture, the trunks colored a profound auburn etched with the faint initials of C and M into the bark.  
  
He twisted around, hearing muffled copper and the door opened with Lumiere, darting in and absent-mindedly he bent down holding the candle-holder in his paw. The candle-holder spoke with suavity, "She's lovely, Master." He gazed avidly into his Master's eyes, which held a remote spark of reflection.  
  
It seemed that he did not hear him at all, and if it wasn't for his firm grip, it would seem that his soul had left his body. His face was entirely blank, the only thing keeping him from appearing a statue being his rhythmic breathing. A porcelain clanking was heard before Mrs. Potts bounded from the door into the room and onto the table. Her face held softness and maternity, and the Beast turned his gaze toward her.  
  
"Master," Mrs. Potts began tentatively, and he began to blink. "Dinner is finished. Now we must wait for her. She has to dress, of course." She finished with as much gentleness and simple as she could. The Master had always hated complex conversation and had always preferred the straightforward.  
  
Exhaling forcefully, he placed Lumiere on the table next to Mrs. Potts and sat at the far end of the table, in a chair with a high-back and soft cotton and linen seating, embroidered with golden tassels. Lumiere and Mrs. Potts sprung over to him, as his gaze turned grave. He began ascetically, with an aggravated edge. "Well, where is she? I gave her over an hour, she should be here!" he finished with emphasis, gesturing to the seat opposite to him, a little over ten feet away.  
  
"Perhaps she is just around the corridor? Master, have you thought this could be the _femme jeune_ who could break the spell?" he was vibrant with excitement, almost as if the spell had been broken already and he was merely waiting for his transformation.  
  
Bothered and offended, the Beast growled, arising and pacing in front of the sizzling fireplace. "Of course I have! I'm not a fool..." he paused, running his paw over his ginger and tousled fur. "It's useless...she's so...so beautiful, and I'm, well, look at me!" he proclaimed, seeing their sensitive faces.  
  
"You must help her to see past all that." Mrs. Potts suggested tenderly, as Lumiere nodded keenly. The Beast glowered, if he had seen himself when he had been the handsome human he had been, it would have been a jest to propose that a stunningly attractive maiden as his captive to fall in love with something that came across as he appeared. In fact, he was not a beast, but not wholly human. Something to be dealt with in between and fitting in neither systematic worlds.  
  
Disheartened, he pouted and flopped back into his chair. He must look as he did when he was a boy, frivolous and pouting like the spoiled child he had been. But he no longer cared, perhaps he could make her fall in love with him so he could become un-enchanted and be his paramount and shamefully handsome self once more. "I don't know how." He finished with a hint of vulnerability.  
  
Mrs. Potts and Lumiere then began a fervent barrage of suggestions, hints, and warnings that sounded to him more of a drill instruction perfected with guidelines than merely a small counsel of advice. Attempting to think, hear the comments, and sort through the advice was arduous and soon all jumbled together as an damp painting left in the ruthless rain. He furrowed his brows.  
  
"You must control your temper!" They both emphasized with prudence and admonition swiftly before the door opened languidly. Lumiere whispered with anticipation, "There she is." All went utterly noiseless, save for the crackling of the flames. But it was not she that was there, only a wooden and gold clock, more than a little fidgety.  
  
"Where is she?" he questioned with a healthy dose of annoyance, as the clock, named Cogsworth, began languidly. "Good evening." The Beast stood, looking down and more than imposing. Cogsworth backed toward the door a step or two, to give the Master more room.  
  
"Oh, the girl? Well, she is in the process of, that is to say, well...Ah yes! She was to tell you..." his modulation dropped from anxious to quiet and acquiescent. "She's not coming." The clock winced, seeing his frozen expression change to one that he could not fully grasp.  
  
The Beast was seamlessly motionless and composed before it registered with him, and it seemed as if time had become stationary. Not unlike the ponds and lakes in the middle of rigorous winter. His rage had been provoked, and only the ones in his propinquity could know of its full extent. Many times the castle had rung with his growls and annoyance at a maladroit or belated servant, even when he had been human, his temper had not dared to have been provoked by acquaintances and family alike.  
  
"What!" he thundered, bursting such as boiling oil in a covered cauldron and fueled by water. The true degree that his wrath could be mustered could not be fathomed by her who had managed to flout him, and bring upon her delicate shoulders the concentrated antagonism that he possessed.  
  
Gliding across the polished marble as a provoked wasp would dart through the air, the others tried to keep up with his rushed and determined stride. It was a pace that would leave even the most fit hunter short-winded and mind-boggled. He was lissome, for he leaped past staircases and fled down corridors with as much dexterity as someone who had been ballroom dancing for a lifetime.  
  
His maroon cloak flapped before stopping as his large fist pounded on the door with immense strength. The sound echoed to the walls and became fainter, loud enough that it would most likely be heard in the West Wing. His voice was livid, deep, and remarkably not winded. "I thought I told you to come down for dinner!"  
  
Her voice began vigorous but faded quietly, "I'm not hungry. You can't possibly tell me to come down when I'm not hungry." He thought that she must be on the other side of the door, either so or her voice could be loud. He opted for the first thought, and vexed by her insolence, he gritted his teeth.  
  
"You come out or I'll, I'll..." he paused swiftly, "I'll break down the door!" he finished, smug in his mind, short in his rush of emotion, and satisfied with his end result. All was at a standstill. A few moments passed, and he banged again on the door, the resulting echo growing fainter.  
  
Lumiere repeated smoothly, placing his two candles together tentatively. "I may be wrong," he began knowing full well that he was not amiss, "...But that may not be the best way to win the girl's affections." The Beast looked at him, badgered enough already by vehemence and insurgence.  
  
Cogsworth aided, pleading solemnly, "Please, attempt to be a gentleman...?" Exhaling, the Beast dropped his tone to monotony. "Will you come down to dinner?" Her response was rapid and in the negative. He pointed to the door to emphasize her obstinacy, gesturing for weight.  
  
With a voice that was smooth and soft with sophistication, Cogsworth continued with suggestion. "Suave and...gentile..." The Beast closed his eyes, taking his cloak in his hands and straining his patience as much as he could, she was perceptibly attempting to experiment with as far as she could be allotted with his persistence. If it were not for the spell...He was going about this for the return of his former self.  
  
"It would be my grave pleasure if you would join me for dinner, Mademoiselle," he added for more suavity. Cogsworth urged him with another recommendation, and he finished with monotony once more. "Please." Her counter was with strained patience also, and it grated on his nerves. "No, thank you."  
  
All thoughts of propriety, gentility and good breeding left him, extinguished like a candle that had been blown out by fierce wind. The only thought that registered in him was insolence and the hot blood that coursed through his veins along with his rapid heartbeat only fanned his ire. "You can't stay in there forever!"  
  
She was quick to oppose his statement with one precisely as biting. "Yes I can!" The objects were astounded, she did not seem petrified of him as they were. Any servant that would have been as impudent as she would have been immediately sacked and a hundred years before, thrown in the dungeon. Recalcitrance to royalty, she was intensely valiant to attempt to undercut his power, causing for a spectacular show.  
  
"Fine! Then go ahead and starve!" he roared, causing the windowpanes to rattle, and the objects to shake. He narrowed his eyes toward the group at his feet, "If she doesn't eat with me," he paused icily, "Then she does not eat...at all!" he rushed from them, slamming a mammoth door at the end of the corridor, causing a crystalline figure to hurtle to the floor.  
  
"That didn't go very well at all, did it?" Mrs. Potts questioned rhetorically, and sighed. Cogsworth shook his head and sighed also, "Might as well go to the dining hall and kitchen and start cleaning up."

-----

Tables crashed, mirrors splinterized, and the clamor of such commotion echoed to the walls and bounced back, intensifying the noise. Ripping a drab-hued drape that hung in his face, he paced himself rapidly to the marble stand. In actuality, it was one of the only pieces of furniture that remained unmarred in his exclusive part of the Wing. His rage was still heightened, as he spoke to himself in low tones.  
  
She had dared to provoke him, and he was sure at one point that she would buckle and come out, be graced with his present. It was his misfortune that he did not keep her in the dungeon. He had given her a room out of his own concord and compunction, and she had shredded his esteem for her. Prisoners were alleged to be compliant and biddable, adept to at least attend dinner.  
  
He would have to break her, that was all. She was too high-minded, thinking that she could hang about in there forever without water, without food. She would recognize who ruled authoritative in the castle, far be it from him that she should contort the impression of who was Master of the castle. It had been an embarrassment to see the disapproving gazes of his servants as she countered with a potency and inflexibility all her own, she would have to be tamed.  
  
Picking up the mirror without so much as a glance toward the gleaming rose that was suspended in mid-air under the fortification of immaculate glass, he beckoned overpoweringly. "Show me the girl!" The sheen bordered near an excruciating jade brilliance before he saw his beastly face transform into a picture of her sitting on the canopy bed that once belonged to his mother.  
  
The dresser was speaking with her soothingly, as her eyes were closed and arms were crossed. It was a stance that he had often took when he had been human and did not attain the outcomes he had wanted. Insubordination. There was a gown near her and the dresser endeavored to modify her opinion.  
  
"The Master's not so awful once you know him. Why don't you give him a chance?" she close to beseeched. The girl opened her eyes, and faced the dresser with startling effervescence, her eyes open and full of emotion. "I don't want to know him. I don't want to have anything to do with him!" she ended with a finality that ended the brief conversation and caused him to put down the mirror.  
  
A sensation of bleakness saturated him. He could have inferred that someone that looked as she would have nothing to do with such a ghastly distressing creature as he. Not fully a beast, but not quite human as well. Something in between and belonging to neither antagonistic world. He glanced at the rose in the glass, musing of the enchantment and the spell that had long since been cast on him.  
  
It would be unattainable to engender a feeling of love for him in her. Even affection was impractical. She was so gorgeous and he was a Beast. As extreme as her obduracy, he was sure that she had rejected many marriage proposals and courted few that measured to her. After all, she was valiant and assertive, she must be to disregard what he directed that she would do.  
  
Placing on paw on his lowered head, and one on the stand, he sighed dejectedly. Forcing her to love him would be futile. How could someone so lovely and likely-looking as she possibly fall in love with he? It would have been a jest when he was human, and if he could fully realize it, a jest now. At times, he thought the Enchantress more brutal than he could ever have been. It would be a Herculean feat for her to love him. Doomed to implosion.

-----

She had heard his temper, felt his indignation, and tasted his vehemence. She had seen in her dress the fright that she had felt but was obstinate not to divulge. His strength had not been lost on her, she heard every pound on the door with clarity and ardor. She had even been tremulous as she heard his roar, heard his intimidation, and heard the slamming of that far-off door and the falling of glass.  
  
Tremulous still, she paced her room. It had more than enough space for her to stride across and stride back. Of course, she could not remain in this room forever, she would without doubt waste away or starve, as he so eloquently put it. A sadistic wrath such as that, she had never experienced in all her years. It had horrified her, as she had rightly been when she was convinced that the door would either cave in or become unlatched.  
  
Her stomach growled audibly again, it had been growling since shortly after the confrontation a few hours before. She had managed to nap lightly for the duration of an hour or so, but now her stomach growled, reminding her of the growl of the Beast, and sighing she drew herself to the window. Pulling back the thick velvet and lavender sash, she gazed out.  
  
Snow. Flakes of ice that collected on the outside windowsill and fell moderately and slowly, so that she saw little but white flakes and the black and mystifying night that gave away little and held in all, in a enigmatic anonymity. Pressing her head against the cool glass, she closed her eyes, loving the chilly feel on her more than warm forehead. It calmed her.  
  
Every winter, it had been a tradition for her and her father to go behind the cottage and build a man made of snow, sticks, and with a carrot and scarf. It was a memory that had lodged itself in her mind, and she could not remember but one winter, when she was in Paris with her paternal grandparents, that she did not make a man made of snow. Now, at the first signs of snow, she was ensnared.  
  
She had never realized the full level of the joy and rapture of freedom until she had lost it. It was now, in her imprisonment that she conceded precisely the degree of degradation that pervaded the word _prisoner_, and it rankled her. Confined her, and made her feel less than human. But she was something more than a prisoner, she took her head from the glass and placed her back to it, gazing at her surroundings.  
  
The room was something noteworthy and a privilege. And when she had defied him and provoked his vexation, she was sure she would be punished with more than just words. Not yet treated as a prisoner, but not yet treated as a human being with rights. Something that was in the center and she could not situate herself in either because her position fitted neither. She inhaled, feeling her stomach grumbled, reminding her of her grinding hunger, having not been fed since morning.  
  
She spoke aloud, knowing the dresser would hear. "Tell the Master...I'll be down shortly." She glanced back into the darkness and flurry, knowing that her response would make him feel even more powerful, he would think that he had triumphed. But she paused, she knew of her real objective. It was for her benefit that she ate, not his. It would be ludicrous of her to starve when she could undoubtedly survive and find other means of obtaining the same result. He would see that he had not prevailed, his infuriation only needed to be braved.


	8. Prelude to Precipice

**Title**: Unworthy  
  
**Author**: Rissa85-Stargazing85  
  
**Rating**: PG13 to R  
  
**Genre**: Angst, Drama, Romance  
  
**Part**: _Part Seven_ (Prelude to Precipice).  
  
**Author's Note**: The chapter seemed a bit slow, probably because I wanted to delve a little deeper into the thoughts of the main characters before the transformation of their characters begin. This part is takes place nearly all in the minds of Belle and the Beast, and so there is no dialogue, unless you count two words. But anyway, I'm rambling. Enjoy. P.S. I didn't add too many gigantic and Webster-worthy words in this chapter because all the description of the setting took place last chapter, so...Enjoy (again).

-----

Rigidity. As she looked up occasionally from her plate, which consisted of veal, vegetables, and fruit, she noticed that his gaze was invariable. His eyes appeared inflexible, so much so that she could not even detect when he was blinking. But she was also a little more than ten feet in length away. Conversation was withdrawn and at a very minimum and she was glad so; she had nothing to discuss.  
  
Her eyes journeyed over the ostentatious display of food; it would be impossible to finish all the dishes on the table. But he was of affluence, and she was sure it would mean nothing to him if the unfinished food were fed to hogs. At any rate, the quicker the meal would terminate the better. The atmosphere was near intolerable. Evidently, with his presumptuous demeanor, he diagnosed his own success.  
  
She shifted; her early obstinacy did not seem so principled as it did at the present time. Conventionally speaking, prisoners who exerted a deal of insubordination did not receive grand feasts or gowns to wear while attending dinner. And while she was indubitably grateful that she did not receive harsh treatment, she was slightly bewildered. There must be an ulterior motive in treating her with much attentiveness.  
  
Thoughts of her captor's consideration brought her back to the dinner. More plates had been removed and now there were more fresh fruits, and an assortment of nuts. But also there happened to be crumpets and an intricate display of cake, more than a foot high and clustered with scarlet cherries. She did not bother to challenge his gaze and meet him, him who kept his gaze unbendable and on her.  
  
Though the thought made her apprehensible, her active mind conjured a far-flung thought that she had earlier pondered. He was treating her as a concubine would be treated, the elaborate dinner, the gown, the room. She was in the process of receiving or having received them all, without truly delving into the concrete practice. A sentiment of contamination permeated her psyche and her feelings.  
  
If she felt so and she had not even engaged in the act, she could not imagine would prostitutes felt when they were consorting with their patrons. It was unspeakable and very much unimaginable, almost surreal. And at once, she felt a seditious emotion toward her mother. A tinge of repugnance. She felt treacherous, but she felt it nonetheless. It was quickly replaced by an emotion of tenderness, for a woman who could entertain a deficient existence by her own soiled hands was truly something pitiable.  
  
Discreetly, she brought her gaze to the beast. He was not peering at her from hardened blue orbs that spoke of untold brutality and suppressed leniency, instead his leer had voyaged to a painting where it settled there for some time. It was a painting of a rushing stream accompanied by silver colored fish painted with a type of hue that seemed to shimmer, even against the soft candlelight.  
  
Inspecting him from afar, she swallowed his image with difficulty. Promptly, he appeared more beast than of man, and yet he was not. His unfastidious fur, his fangs that jutted from his mouth and his massive size all contradicted the image of man, made in the image of Himself. In spite of that, the most humane part of him, eyes that belied bestiality and conveyed emotion discredited the image of beast.  
  
Despite teachings that it was mythical and even partly unholy, upon seeing her Master, she was sure that witchcraft was, in fact, very authentic. Though her town was not zealous on the prosecution and persecution of warlocks, werewolves, witches and sorcerers, she was not heedless of them. A few towns around Paris were popular sites for European tourists to witness the execution and trial of those suspected of consorting with the devil over enchantment, though the practice seemed to have waned nearly a hundred years before.  
  
Indistinct clanking from what she estimated where from the kitchen floated over the almost tangible stillness and tautness. Sighing, she drew her eyes away as he began to blink and picked up his exquisite glass, handle encrusted with silver, and brought it to his mouth. He tipped his head back slightly and, decanter in hand, downed all of its contents, sitting it back to the table all in an effortless sweep. It was a coarse action, but then again he had to accommodate manners to what he could execute.  
  
Boorish. A thought that simultaneously made her muse of Gaston. But the differences in appearances were salient. While Gaston would ludicrously be more attractive, the actions were quite parallel. Uncouth gestures that detracted from their looks, the Beast even more so, and overpowering auras that made one shudder as they thought of available strength that lie in the individual.  
  
Having had her fill of dinner, she pushed herself away from the table an inch or so, causing the simple and soft sound to become magnified. He was watching her again, and she reflexively reached for her glass, though she was not thirsty, brought it to her lips. Perhaps it would detract from the noise she had caused, and would aid in braking his unrelenting glower. 

-----

Remembering the last woman he had dined with, he drew disconcerting differences. The one had been haughty and self-centered, self-assured and cocky, all the while keeping the conversation on her and in her realm of knowledge. She had been dauntingly lovely, with auburn tresses that were piled high on her head accompanied by feathers and jewels, and a small waist. The night had ended in a pleasant note, with her warming his bed and leaving briskly after morning meal.  
  
His prisoner, the lady that sat across from for the moment, was unlike the other. She was still arrestingly beautiful, having changed from the commoner light azure dress and white apron and now dressed in something that he deemed more elegant. A verdant satin and white velvet low-cut dress that spoke merely in a whisper, and reminded him faintly of those women who were stylishly salacious.  
  
Dinner had been hushed. Perhaps because of his earlier outburst, none the matter, it had reaped the exact results he aimed for. Hunger had broke her, and now she was at dinner with him as he had initially planned. He had been indignant, an insubordinate prisoner, it was almost an oxymoron. Almost laughing now, he gazed at her, perhaps he could break her into also falling in love with him, release him from his Hell.  
  
An affliction it was to see such a beautiful lady in front of him and know that the evening would not end with them both in his chambers. As a rule, he had made it somewhat of a ritual to dine with a likely-looking lady and almost as a diversion, attempt to guess the minutes it would take until his companion would end the night next to him under satin sheets and linen.  
  
Reminiscing about the primary situation he had dined and bedded a woman all in the same night, he chuckled softly as he poured himself more wine from the violet carafe near his decanter. It was the same night, twelve years before, that he had became aware that with sophisticated charm and his stunning looks that he could woo with a few phrases that would tenderly coax.  
  
Boasting about his encounter with a few elite friends had made him revered among them, and along with his fiendish companions and himself, he managed to make it somewhat a pastime to compare encounters and rate them among most provocative and most manipulative. The women he bedded, he cared little about, except when it concerned a certain organ that became rigid.  
  
The plates removed and replaced, he gazed at the female in front of him, she was not looking at him but at her food. It was a meal that he deemed one of his favorites, a feast consisting of veal, fruits, and vegetables. Side dishes were common and elaborate and spread about him just within arms reach. His prisoner did not eat much, she was dainty and had not bothered to have her decanter refilled, perhaps it had been touched. He would not be surprised if she did drink imported Italian brandy, _Vin blanc de Venise_, most commoners were acquainted only with beer and gin.  
  
He wondered at her again, vulgar thoughts complementary to his wonder. She was temperate, she was determined, and had been dressed virginally. It was very likely that she had never known a man, but equally likely that she had, she was very beautiful and could have a handsome man with ease. He opted on the first thought, that she had never shared a bed with a male, and if he were his former self, how he would've coaxed her throughout the evening. But something told him that even so, she would not be unproblematic to bed outside of matrimony.  
  
Bringing the plum decanter to his mouth, he paused. A wild thought entered his mind, as his gaze became fixed on the initials on the picture in the river. Chanelle. Perhaps her virginity, that belonging to his prisoner, reminded him of his mother. Though the latter was discussed quietly as a whore dressed in royal garbs. The grace and modesty of his mother brought him to the diffidence of his prisoner, though her gown was not so reasonable or concealing. Her aura made the gown seem less lewd, though it would have been shocking to see on another lady.  
  
Bringing himself back to dinner, he had heard a sound of wood sliding across the floor, and he noticed that she seemed a few inches farther from the table. Her dessert, having been brought promptly remained untouched and she it seemed she was finished. But not wanting to release her, after all, she would have to wait for him to dismiss her, she was his possession.  
  
More brandy had been brought for him, and refilling his glass, he downed the contents slowly gazing at her from the corner of his eye. Her dark and roaming eyes wafted across the room languidly, taking in each sight as if she had just arrived, she must be observant or if not, very uninterested in the atmosphere and attempting to find a way to keep occupied until he finished.  
  
Setting his decanter to the table, he mused with satisfaction about his own triumph over her. A fleeting thought to force her to become his mistress entered his mind, but as quickly it flew, almost before he fully realized what he had been thinking. He shifted, simultaneously becoming rigid at the thought, and feeling satisfied sat across from her and cleared his throat.  
  
She gazed at him, with the curious brown eyes that wanted to become familiar with all and desiring as much knowledge as a child interested in a certain pastime. Her posture was lithe and she focused on him as he spoke to her with firmness. "Leave me." She confirmed her fluidity, when she rose and left the room.  
  
Something was dissimilar about her than the other women he had been in the presence of. She was not the most dazzling woman he had ever met, though she was a rival to the one he had came in contact with, the latter having been all powdered and full of self-importance. It was almost as if the former had exerted an aura all her own, and filled with tranquility and another sensation he could not place his talon on.  
  
He then stood, realizing his head was spinning from drink. Customarily he would have glided his way to the room in the East Wing, but that was unfeasible now. Since his captive now held that room in her possession. It donned on him now, that he had given her a room that was almost as consecrated to him as the whole of the West Wing. All to the applause of the frivolous sentiment of remorse. He had his former and younger self to congratulate.  
  
He sat down again, attempting to refrain the spinning that assaulted his head when he stood. All at once, his gaze traveled to the portrait, which held the distinguishable initials, etched into the bark of a tree and signifying the endowed painter, all the while remaining slight. It was something she had always been, never ostentatious but noticeable in her own right.  
  
He stood once more, the room seeming to be more warm than he liked, and equally more personal than he cared for. Drawing his maroon cloak about him, velvet meeting against his unkempt fur, and he moved toward the door. Standing in the doorframe, he began to become adjusted the revolving environment and the coolness of the hallway. Everything had a slight skew and he exhaled.  
  
He would not go toward the East Wing, though it was routine to do so when his head was rotating with drink. The room, which he deemed sacred, was taken, and at once he felt almost emotionally crippled. For years, it was the room that he sat in under intoxication. Drawing in breath, he paused, there was one place he could go. With as much agility and swiftness as someone who spent their whole life in sobriety, he stole himself to the West Wing. 


	9. Irrationality Engenders Guilt

**Title**: Unworthy

**Author**: Rissa85

**Rating**: PG13 to R

**Genre**: Drama/Angst

**Part**: _Part Eight_ (Irrationality Engenders Guilt)

**Disclaimer**: No I don't own Beauty and the Beast. Sorry.

**Author's Note**: Hurrah for the 15-month hiatus. I'm infamous for getting really into my writing and then cooling off for a probably lengthy period of time. But I'm back and have had a great chance to review this story and critique what I've written so far and how to make it better. So here it goes…

---

Instead of trekking back to the familiar room, radiating the faint smell of sunflowers and expensive spirits, a hand absent-mindedly traveled the length of the railing of a corridor quite far from the dining hall of the West Wing. Every now and then, her small and slightly beige-tinted hand would glide over some uneven part of the surface and the return to pass over the smoothness of the stone railing.

'How quiet it is here!' she mused, noting that she could hear neither sound from any direction nor her footsteps, muffled by the carpet she treaded upon and only heard during the brief intervals when the intricate rugs ended and then her shoes would come in contact with polished marble that would reflect the world on top it like a mirror.

As she took note of her surroundings, she observed quickly the contrast of the decorations outside her room to the details of the furniture and tapestry inside her room. The rugs were pretty still and made of the same plush-looking velvet, but the embellishments were formidable and hideous looking. How else could one describe the gray gargoyles woven into black velvet, mouths agape and eyes piercing or the vicious serpents, winding their way around columns with their tongues flicking, suspended as if frozen?

After ascending a few flights of stairs, traveling down another corridor or two, and ascending another few flights of stairs, she now found herself journeying up a narrow staircase. Somehow, it did not seem to have been touched by the contamination of serpents and gargoyles that the rest of the castle had been touched by, just as her room had not. The walls were a dark golden color and on either side were portraits of beautiful royal persons framed in either gold, silver or bronze which she guess symbolized the order of importance.

But a few particular portraits seized her attention. Two had been taken of a pale woman, her expression perfectly balanced. Neither frowning nor smiling, her intense stare was enhanced only by her eyes tinted the same shade as fresh spring grass. The painter had not flattered her posture, for she appeared very stiff and formal, almost cold, with her blonde hair piled high above her head.

But another portrait, obviously taken years beforehand, had left her breathless. The same woman, with the beautiful green eyes, was lying on a blood-colored chaise longue, her golden hair resembling corkscrews fanning away from her. Her body, modestly cloaked and concealed in amethyst-hued lace, was petite and her legs long. Though a paradox, she seemed modest and virginal but sensual as well.

Realizing that she had spent some time gazing at the woman, Belle continued on trudging up the staircase, lifting her satin skirts so that she may not become entangled with them and lose her balance on the narrow ascent. But another portrait interrupted her as suddenly as the other two had.

A young man, immensely handsome and holding a haughty stance, posed regally with a crown that easily cost more than what her father could make in a lifetime. The cape he wore was lined with black fur and nearly touched the ground. His hair was of a medium shade of brown, with the faintest traces of blonde and greatly complemented his eyes, a deeper shade than that of the lady's she had seen, and flecked with hazel. There he stood, square of jaw, a pointed nose, and his skin a slight tan, probably from the riding outdoors.

Wondering curiously who these people had been, Belle reached the top of the stairwell. Noticeably, it was darker up here as the torches along the wall became smaller and spaced farther apart so that one or two steps were completely shrouded in darkness. Perhaps she should turn back now, but she could not. Curiosity had always been one of her personality traits, and had always been encouraged by her father, and so she saw it to her advantage and entertainment to continue.

The rug stopped, and now as she stepped lightly along the marble floor along the corridor so narrow she could spread her arms wide and touch walls to her sides, she heard her footsteps, her heels clicking against the marble. She coughed, gripping a torch from the wall to carry with her, dust collected and clustered about thickly here as an absence of any drafts of air became all too apparent.

She came to a door and squinted, fumbling for the doorknob, she opened the heavy door slowly, hearing the audible click of the doorknob as she twisted it and stepped in. The room was pitch black, and no sooner had she let go of the doorknob and stepped inside then the door had swung shut behind her ominously, plunging her into an almost tangible darkness only interrupted by the dim glow of the torch that trailed her and lighted her face as a halo on top of the head of an angel glows white or yellow.

In a stuffy atmosphere immersed in blackness, Belle found herself nearly tripping over large chests in the middle of the room, and her hands felt large square frames setting along the side of the walls. At one point, her body knocked into a dusty ivory bookcase which she managed to keep from falling over but the small glass figures upon it had slid and crashed to the floor. And in the silence, she might as well have screamed so was the impact upon the silence the now shattered fragments had made. She stood very still.

The turning of a door could be heard, somewhere in front of her, she could judge by the sound and not in enough time, she paused, her fingers trembling and blew out the torch, but not before the door had swung open fully.

Now it was pitch black, and backing up, she fell over a small table before pressing finding her way to the wall which she guess to be facing north, her footsteps indicating her thunderous retreat. Her fingers trembled, and she stood quivering as they grasped the cold metal of the torch handle unsteadily, clinging to them as if it were the single thread of life to which she held on.

The slow and menacing growl continued, as it seemed to come close to her and the move away. From the way that nothing was crashed into nor was anything struck upon in an attempt to find a way; it was obvious that this was the Beast and this room was very familiar to him. As he passed by her form, she heard his growl and her fingers, shaking violently and palms sweating, she dropped the torch and it clattered to the ground.

The growling stopped as she knelt, fumbling for the torch. All was still, and as she desperately searched for it, her hand passed something furry and matted. In a fraction of a second, her small wrist was encircled by a massive paw that clenched upon her like the talons of an eagle on a bit of prey.

She cried, "My wrist!"

"You should have thought of it when you were trespassing here! Had I not told you? You don't belong in the West Wing!" his voice was murderously livid, and in moment she felt rushes of wind and drafts of sleet descend upon her bare head, her brown locks whipping about her face, and the blackness receding as light made it somewhat easier to see.

In her shock and horror, she had not noticed that he had taken her through the door he had came from, and she was now in a dim area where she could make out the outlines of objects and him, his massive form imposing and frightening her. Perhaps he would kill her and then what? How would her dear Papa ever know?

The sleet rapidly soaked through the thin satin of her gown, and she bit back a cry as he through her on the ground forcefully. She had no idea of where she was in the castle and not a very clear view of her surroundings, except for the wall facing west. Not a wall, the whole length and with of the west side of the room was gone, and had been replaced by bars that allowed one to see to the outside and be bombarded by the elements. The sleet fell upon her almost in sheets, and she shivered, her tresses sticking to the sides of her face and falling behind her shoulders, drenched.

"This will teach you about my anger!" he roared before drawing back into the darkness from where they had come.

Unlike the stuffy room, here it was not quiet, but earsplitting with the howl of the wind and the biting and miniature pieces of ice that pelted her skin and numbed her body. After a few minutes of this, she became numb; the world bleak and cold, her clothes clinging frantically to her body, and nothing to warm her, nothing except the salty trail of tears winding its way to her chin, where it wavered before falling.

'What a hideous beast!' she thought to herself, standing up and rubbing her hands together in order to receive some semblance of heat. All the hatred and dislike she ever experienced could not even amount or compare marginally with the intense aversion and repulsion she felt toward the Beast. Obviously, he was not human, he could have never have been human- not the way he treated her Papa and now her. It made difference to him if she froze to death or became irreparably damaged or starved, torture and punishment appeared almost fetishes to him.

To pass the time, though only an expanse of about fifteen minutes or so had gone by, she began to sing to herself the fleeting phrases of a memorable childhood song and when she tired of this, she began to recall every detail about her home that she could. Soon, she began to stop shivering much to her relief as a wave of sleepiness passed over her. Fighting to stay awake and to stay alive, she sniffled and began to recite the most favorite passages of her favorite books.

But like a gentle tyrant that can be neither rebuffed nor denied forever, she felt herself slipping into a strangely warm and oddly satisfying slumber.

Pacing the balcony of the West Wing, the sleet falling on him also, the Beast gripped the railing, feeling the strength of his muscles and the extent of his anger as his claws left marks in the marble barrier which kept him from falling over onto the rough roof and the turrets below. If he had stayed in her presence, he was sure that she would not be alive by this time.

"How dare she go here!" he muttered to himself, raising his voice at each word so that the last was a little less than a shout. Perhaps the girl had a death wish, first ignoring his insistence that she eat dinner with him, and then prancing about the West Wing as if she lived here and those were _her_ things crashing to the ground in the dark room.

He had not gone into that room for over six years, ordering that no servant even so much as touch its doorknob much less dust and wax the floor. Everything was to be preserved as _Madame_ _Montague_ had last left it, everything in its rightful place, not open to air and her clothes still carrying her scent from a past trip still packed in the neat trunks.

Once the crash was heard, it was almost if something instinctive and violent awakened with him and everything rational fell asleep. With brute force, he pushed the door ajar and like he knew the triggers that made him drink, he knew that someone had been fumbling around by the way the bookcase had been displaced and the small fragments which had cut him, but in his rage he had not paused to notice.

It was as if everything about her and around her suddenly made him remember his mother. _Chanelle Claire D'Aubigne Montague_. And if that was not enough, it the guilt that followed him only intensified when he was around her. Belle. Her father yelled her name in vain as she made her decision in the dungeon. It fit her. Beautiful in every way and yet infinitely stupid for going into forbidden area.

"Belle." He murmured to himself, savoring the name and rolling it across his tongue slowly, clutching the marble and growing hot and cold at the same time before laughing at himself aloud brutally. He was captivated by her, becoming drunk with passion when he gazed at her, and full of guilt when he saw her vulnerable eyes.

Full of guilt now, he paused. Perhaps he had been too rude when he shoved her to the ground on the wet stone floor, and maybe he had been too crude when he gripped her arm, feeling his talons pierce her warm flesh, her pulse quick and permeated with adrenaline. She did not know where she was going, perchance she did not know this was even the West Wing.

He moved away from the shadows, away from the balcony.

Back where he placed her, the sleet dissipated and left only a violent wind to reign in its absence. The stone floor, drenched and collecting puddles of water, could barely be seen in the dimness. Through the bars which ran from ceiling to floor, nothing was visible except a sort of fog which fell and settled thickly so that anything besides the outline of the tall pines of the forests weren't detectable.

Petrified, he stood. A huddled mass of soaked satin and dark locks that spread about around her ashen face, Belle lay on the stone floor. All was silent except for the wind that whipped solitary strands of her hair about her face and caused ripples in the puddles of water around her.


	10. Effects of Contrition

**Title**: Unworthy

**Author**: Rissa85-Stargazing85

**Rating**: PG13 to R

**Genre**: Drama/Angst/Romance

**Part**: _Part Nine_ (Effects of Contrition)

**Disclaimer**: A standing ovation for this part, please, you won't see another disclaimer until the epilogue. I'm sick of writing the same thing for each part. )

**Author's Note**: For some reason, I really liked the last chapter that I wrote even though it doesn't seem as if it was in-depth as the first eight chapters, even though it was easier to understand and read. Sigh

---

The rush of the chill wind, icy even to him with thick and matted fur, the soles of his hind legs sloshed through the myriad of puddles about the stone floor. Diffidently, he stood from her, who was only about some twelve or so paces from him. The blood in his veins felt uncomfortably warm and his pulse, uncomfortably quick. His mouth felt too dry and something ominous stirred in the pit of his stomach, a sick feeling that reminded him faintly of the same feeling he harbored when he was younger and had done something he knew would be criticized by his mother.

Shaking his head, he pulled himself from an oncoming reverie and trudged to her, not noticing the shaking of his hands, "Belle!" he yelled worriedly, wondering how long he had left her to the elements. No response, not even a lift of a hand or the lift of her head, covered with slight bits of ice that clung to dark and wet hair. The slight and intermittent heave of her chest was the only sign of life she gave. "Belle! Belle!" he roared, angrily though at himself or her, he could not determine.

Kneeling beside her, frantically he touched her elbow. Cold. Cold as ice, cold as the icy finger of death. It did not even feel as if it were made of soft and warm skin, but felt more like the roughness of his paws and the chilliness of frozen glass. A violent shiver that shook her whole body began and ended just as rapidly as it surfaced. He attempted to lift her up, but she slumped against him, just as a pillow or a doll would. "Belle!" he bellowed uneasily, if she died he would never forgive himself.

"Belle! Are you okay? Belle!" he howled worriedly, noting the frigidity and iciness of wet satin against the warmness of his chest. She was drenched, with small bits of ice clinging to the bit of lace in her gown, clinging to her eyebrows and lashes. Her eyes opened half-way, so that she appeared on the verge of falling asleep, blinking slowly, her breathing shallow.

He could only remember one time when he was a child, having no more than about nine or ten years at the most, of the brutality and danger of the cold. Some royal something-or-other of his mother's, one of her only confidants, had been stranded in the snowy forest when her carriage had been attacked by ravenous wolves. Able to leave on horseback, she had gotten lost in the forest, and when the horse threw her off its back, she wandered around before collapsing shortly before palace officials found her and what was left of her party. Mother never let him see what happened to her, but when she first came in the palace he thought it strange that her lips and skin were tinged blue in some place and she spoke as incoherently as Father when he was drunk. The only thing he could hear his mother commanding, shrieking was, "Don't let her fall asleep! Keep her awake, do what you may, but keep her awake!"

Her lids began to close and he shook her violently, "Stay awake! Don't close your eyes, Belle!" Another shiver, this time, it was not as violent and did not seem to shake her from head to foot. "Try to stand." He pleaded futilely, as he attempted to lift her into a standing position, her legs wobbled as gracelessly as a newborn colt when first prancing, as clumsily as a toddler taking its first steps. Then, as if made of gelatin, her legs gave way from under her and she stumbled before falling; fortunately, he caught her and whisked her into his arms, placing one massive arm behind her knees and the other supporting her back.

"Belle! Don't close your eyes!" he pleaded again, pathetically.

Her blue-tinged lips parted, as he carried her from the dungeon, "Let sleep,…Papa…. I'm so… berry…" she mumbled incoherently, her lids beginning to close. Why, she was delirious! He damned himself to Hell for placing her in that dungeon, if only he could only curb his temper. "My mother…she….I never…knew her name…"

And in that one moment, her eyes rolled back and she collapsed against him limply, her lids closing. "No!" he roared into her ear, "Belle! Belle, you must listen to me, you can't fall asleep. You'll die! Only keep talking to me, what about your mother? Belle!" Again he beseeched frenziedly. The richness and volume of his voice gave her a start, and her lids did not open but her mouth did and she began, "She…'as prery. Wake me….laler." Her speech was becoming more and more muddled and less and less incoherent.

He strained to hear her faint whispers and nodded, "Pretty, yes. And what else about her?" Silence reigned for a while before he heard her drowsy reply, "Blown eyes…Hated 'er…I didn't wan' look like 'er…" she paused before exhaling slowly, "Lemme…sleep." She pleaded unfocusedly and her head rolled back for a few seconds before he shook her violently. "And what else?"

Her half-closed eyes looked up at the ceiling and she shivered, "Papa,…wha' 'ill he eat?" she demanded, her voice missing any elements of force. The Beast nodded, "He'll be eating the best of the land, why I'll send my servants to cook him a feast. Anything he likes."

"Give 'im my share of dinner. 'Member the mutton, Papa…never 'ad any since…" she became quiet and he shook her again, this time she didn't react. Obviously, he knew there had been no mutton at dinner and that her mind was all but coherent, but he continued shaking her. Anything to get her to speak, anything to hear her lovely voice, may it be thick and slurred.

"Belle!" he roared, but to no avail. She was slipping into unconsciousness. With a last resort thought, and wincing, he took the talons he had supporting her back and pressed them into the fabric, feeling them cut through the fabric and pierce her flesh. Immediately, she shrieked, and writhed against him weakly, too weak to pull away from him and mumbled weakly, "Papa…"

"It's…summer…it's swarm here." She muttered, the ice finally beginning to melt in her hair and the melting ice in her lashes and eyebrows traveled down her face so that it appeared as if she were sweating profusely. He nodded, "Much warmer here. You never did finish telling me about your mother."

"Shelived in Paris." Her words ran together, all garbled. "Span'ish" she muttered, nodding. Then she choked, "My Pa…?"

"Yes, he is fine. He wants you to keep talking so you can get better." He urged her, trying to shake her from exhaustion.

At last, after more urgings and more faint mumblings, he arrived at the room, second floor on the South Wing, that caused him such anxiety and comfort simultaneously. He stepped in with her and placed her on the silky satin before leaning his massive head out of the door and roaring, "Get me plenty of hot water, hot towels, and warm clothing for her! Hurry!" The echo vibrated and his voice shook the chandeliers overhead, then rushed over to her.

She needed to get out of the wet clothing. But he would have to do it; if he left her to herself, she would probably fall asleep and the way she was mumbling incoherently and not shivering at all, her skin stiff and her lips still blue-tinged, that would probably be fatal. Gritting his teeth, he let her slip into semi-consciousness before giving another thought to stripping her. His blood grew hot and then cold as anticipation began to build, how awful it was to have such thoughts about her at this time!

Attempting to detach himself, he waited until her breathing became shallower before taking the ribbons which held up the front of her bodice and slowly untied them, unheeding his trembling paws. Then he picked up speed, unfastening the clasps of the rest of her gown, his hands shaking and his breath quickening, attempting to push away thoughts of other times. Other times when he had been unfastening the gowns of maidens.

Loosening her clothing now, he noticed the complimenting beige-undertones and the smoothness of her skin, albeit it was a slight waxy and pale now, and then too, the curves of her body. He pulled the clothes from her body, his eyes glued to her, his mind conjuring indecent pictures involving her, his hands still quaking intensely. He pulled the gown from her, holding it up and tossing it about the floor; the servants would get it. She lay, clad in a corset and a petticoat. They were wet, also, but he knew the constraints of his self-control; if he removed them, all would be irreplaceably lost.

"Belle?" he tapped her, she did not respond. Perhaps he should not have let her fall asleep so, "Belle!" he spoke louder, shaking her. For a full minute she did not reply, until her eyes opened, again half-way, and she gazed at him, through him, as if he did not exist, her pupils dilated. "Papa…?" an intense and violent shiver shook her to the core, but with his hands shaking as well, he was not apt to notice this. "I'm needsleep." She garbled softly.

The Beast shook his head, fiercely, "Not now. To sleep is to die!"

"Master?" a feminine voice outside the door questioned, "The towels and the hot water are outside the door, if you please." He could not make it to the door fast enough if he traveled the speed of light, with breathless swiftness and flung open the door so that flung against the wall adjacent to it with a loud bang, no doubt causing the objects below him to shudder.

An ivory pot, shiny and spotless, with a golden handle and a top and bottom that were lavender and embellished with baby blue stood near the golden candleholder, Lumiere. Both had eyes that carried a hint of disapproval and anxiety, both were waiting to be of service to the _Mademoiselle_ in the room, semi-unconscious and clad only in a corset and chemise. Wordlessly, he did not even glimpse at them, but his hands went to the warm towels and the pitcher, scooping them all in his arms without so much as a fumble or a hint of awkwardness.

With breakneck speed, he spun around, his back to them; but, he paused and looked over his shoulder. "Well? What're you staring at?" he growled petulantly. The pot and the candleholder, Mrs. Potts and Lumiere, backed away but not before Lumiere opened his mouth then closed it as if to chastise himself from attempting to speak in the first place.

"Master, will you need anything else?" Mrs. Potts inquired worriedly, her maternal instincts surfacing and reminded the Beast of his younger days when she commanded all the servants of the North and the East Wing. Not always a favorite of his, he glanced at her, suddenly remembering all the gentle yet effective and plentiful admonitions she made to him during his youth. Comfort. That is what he needed right now; what he craved, perhaps she could help him.

And Lumiere, one of the servants he trusted the most, his childhood friend though lesser to him in status and therefore inherently inferior. He had always had the personality to lift spirits and lighten the mood, no matter how heavy the atmosphere was. Perhaps…

"What should I do about her?" he muttered, almost pleading to both of them, striving for any type of advice any type of solace, some sort of confirmation that he wasn't as wicked and heartless and merciless as he felt and believed himself to be so. Silence reigned for a moment or so.

"Is she very bad off?" Lumiere questioned at the same time that Mrs. Potts inquired, "Is she still awake?"

He heard them both as if they had spoken at different times and as if their voices were magnified a thousand times, and answered them separately. "She was nearly unconscious when I reached her. I…I let her fall asleep while I dressed her." He admitted, not telling them the full reason why he let her fall asleep. If he hadn't, he was doubtful if he would have been able to touch her with her eyes focused on him.

"You let her what?" Lumiere, prone to emotion, questioned incredulously. "Wake her, Master you must!"

Mrs. Potts was more slow and methodical when she replied, "I remember, when _Lady Montague_'s imperial consultant was captured from the snow. You must keep her awake at all costs, and keep her warm." He nodded to her, understanding and though it had been years since they heard it, he expressed his profound gratitude before pulling the door behind him with his free hand.

If shame was referred ever to an all consuming fire; then, he would most definitely be burnt to vestiges. Sure that he would leave as soon as she regained consciousness, he left a lone candle near he bedside, barely enough to light the area around her, much less the whole expanse of the room.

After placing warm towels about her and waking her roughly by shaking her violently until she regained consciousness, he prodded her awake and asked her questions, any question that would cause her to answer, sometimes asking the same questions twice. They were mostly simple questions: What were her favorite flowers? What season did she like best? She answered some of them wrong, answering months when she should answer days and confusing seasons with flowers but she was awake- that was what mattered.

When he ran out of questions to ask her, he began asking her to repeat words and names that he spoke to her. Detached, his mind wandered to the faint smell of the room-then to the softness of the chair he pulled from the small oak table near the window. Odd that he should feel shame so much later in life; he hadn't felt it in so many years that it felt strange that even recognized what it was though he confused it interchangeably with guilt. But somehow, it made him human, made him feel finally like a man, a feeling he had unquestionably missed during the past near ten years or so during the curse.

If only she would return to herself, so that he would not have to keep his eyes glued to the window and not have to torture himself with glimpses of her flesh, or have to torture himself with remaining in this room. All of a sudden, it seemed unbearably small and suffocating. If push came to shove, he would have to take her from the room and place her somewhere in the West Wing. Anywhere but in this god-forsaken room, why did he always have to experience guilt in this damned room? Almost as if the spirit of his father was mocking him in the South Wing and the spirit of his mother was mocking him in this room. The spirits of both were mocking him.

He gripped the armrest, glancing at the painting of the woman on the balcony, obviously painted by his mother and as his eyes adjusted in the dark, he squinted to make out the woman, a dark form in a still darker room. The moon in the picture, a pale circle as the lone object in the night sky, seemed to shimmer in the dim candlelight which was peculiar because he could barely make out the silver frame. And if he wasn't mistaken, didn't the lady on the balcony just turn a fraction of an angle in his direction?

Rubbing his eyes and shaking his head vehemently, he tore his eyes from the picture to the maiden slurring whatever he compelled her to say. If only she would recover…


	11. Ode to a Convalescent

**Title**: Unworthy

**Author**: Rissa85

**Rating**: PG13 to R

**Genre**: Romance, Drama, Angst

**Part**: _Part Ten_ (An Ode to a Convalescent)

**Author's Note**: I really had a bit too much fun with that last chapter. Ahh….that research, I tell ya. slaps knee On to part ten…

---

Unconscious still. How long could anyone remain unconscious until they finally died? Gripping a golden chalice, decorated with the royal crest of the _Montague_ family, he downed nearly half the contents in one mouthful. Strange that his father should make the family a royal crest when most were designed by individuals for their own sole use. He had been taught as a child that most cavaliers in that land of imperialist fools and their equally scheming navy-England, made crests different even from their fathers. Why _his_ father decided to make the family crest a frenzy of foxes, wolves and amethyst gems clustered about so that it was difficult for one to hold it comfortably was beyond him.

He had placed hot towels about her, careful to let them steam let up before setting them on her delicate and pale skin. The blue-tinge of her lips had waned considerably; but no other condition had improved. As soon as he felt her pulse and noted its semi-steadiness and her lip color returning to normal; he let her quit mumbling whatever he told her to and let her fall unconscious, perhaps sleep would remedy her. After all, she was safe now. He was here; and he wouldn't be a fool enough to let her rest if it would kill her.

But he was not as pompous and self-assured as he generally was. But, by God, this room! If he hadn't called for a bottle of Armagnac brandy, he was sure that he would've gone crazy. How small this room seemed now, why the sunflowers he strewn about the room made it appear even smaller. A direct contrast to the casting about of sunflowers across the West Wing around the anniversary of his mother's death each year- this alone took nearly two hours and a half at a swift pace. This had taken no more than about five minutes at most.

Perhaps he would read something. There had to be a book here somewhere, somewhere in these drawers. He stood, not the slightest bit dizzy or unsteady despite the downing of two chalices of brandy. Not casting a glance back at the bed, he began opening and slamming drawers shut, finding nothing but ladies' garments-chemises and different-hued corsets made of leather and cloth and complete with steel and ivory boning. Some other garments, perhaps a folded old gown or two, but no books. He shut the drawers closed with deafening bangs. At the sound of each bang, he whirled around to see if she had awaked.

Her eyes were still closed, barely illuminated by the candlelight, three sole and tall candles burning slowly and unscented. Her chest still, appearing not to be heaving at all, then an ever so slight heave. Irritably, he sank back into the chair. His hand brought the neck of the bottle to refill the chalice, but he slammed it down, not wanting anymore.

-----

The slamming down of glass on mantle and the ensuing splintering. A violent assault of heated brandy and an overpowering smell of sunflowers ambushed her nose, and in that one moment she became aware of the fact that it was the first time she ever associated sunflowers with masculinity. She felt incredibly weak, disoriented and very lethargic.

"Belle!" the Beast exclaimed, rushing over to her, fumbling with her small hands, still cold at the fingertips and only slightly warm at the wrists were he noted the small cuts his talons had made into them, this brought his mind to wounds he was sure she had on her back from when he pushed his talons through the fabric of her gown.

"Are you alright? Do you feel alright? Are you hungry? Do you need anything?" his words tumbled forth in a tempest of jumbled words.

For a lengthy period of time, at least five minutes or more, she gazed at him. He caused all of this with his almost bloodthirsty and sadistic vengeance, if he had only given her time to think to tell him she did not know where she was, all this could've been avoided. . All of this weakness, and hazy memories could have been avoided. Anger and hostility was a foreign emotion to her in that she never had a chance in her lifetime to experience the full extent of it- Irritation, yes. High annoyance, of course. But anger and hostility and wrath-all those emotions as foreign to her household as East Asian languages, were almost harrowing in their manifestation now, causing her blood to quicken and her pale face to acquire color most peculiarly swift.

But before she could open her mouth to speak, the sudden unbearable warmth of the room became insufferable and a wave of dizziness passed over her before receding. "You did this…" she whispered, challenging him.

He was very quiet, carrying an almost guilty feeling in his bosom. He was watching her, giving a start when he saw the slight roll of her head and the rapid coloring of her cheeks. But hearing her testy reply grated on his nerves and he restrained himself poorly, after all she wasn't well.

"Lie down," he commanded slowly with a bit of self-control. "You're not yet well."

"But, look what've done! How was I to know that was the West Wing? And then you lock me into a tower…?" she was cut off by him, who held up his hand so that she might stop talking.

"I rescued you, didn't I?" he hoarsely replied, not having been tried in years, not having been talked to in years in that tone of voice-a mixture of contempt and hostility. "And your ways! Prancing about someone else's castle…most mothers would teach their children manners but I see this didn't happen to you!"

All at once, she went sheet white and felt her blood nearly boil, he had hit a raw nerve, "You awf-" she began weakly before rolling into a fading blackness that receded just as quickly as it came. "…you!" She spat weakly, as her head began to roll again, ever so slightly. My, how this room was hot!

Too stunned and suddenly too enervated to finish her retort, much less lie upright, Belle could only stare at him with eyes of feeble antagonism and a degree of annoyance. If only the room would stop spinning for just a moment! Having collapsed against the maroon and white satin pillows, her dark hair and pale face contrasting sharply and giving her nothing short of an almost ghastly appearance so drained was her face of color. Her eyes appeared too large for her face, simultaneously full of wisdom beyond her years and then saturated with innocence and naivete and vulnerability unparalleled.

Talons piercing the velvet armrests, he watched her intent on controlling his receding yet potent anger. For a while he had felt equally guilty and unworthy of gracing her presence so detached from human dignity he had felt; but now, when she managed to challenge him in her tone of voice and her eyes staring sharply into his, his feelings of worthlessness dissipated and were exchanged for fury.

But, gazing about her, she looked so frail! So pale! At this very moment, she could be slipping, perhaps passing and he would remember her with futile anger and gazes directed toward him, who could alleviate her sickness and slow convalescence but chose to magnify her discomfort and illness. He felt as wicked as an imp, as guilty as a blood-soaked murderer before a constable.

He must do something, anything, but what?

An a moment or so passed, all the while, her lids would close and then open, her eyes rolling ever so noticeably before the lids would cover them, conceal them, cloak them in an inviting and spinning darkness and silence. Then an idea arose in his head, clamored for attention and seized his concentration. Why, but of course, something to soothe her, something a bit of a comfort.

Noting that she had begun to close her eyes once more, he stood swiftly and gracefully, silent as a feline and sauntered to the door, opening it and closing it behind him before roaring, "Music! Music for the _Mademoiselle_, I want something peaceful, gentle! Piano, violin, play what you may!" An immediate scramble by all sorts of objects began without delay at his command, and he winced, realizing how loud his voice must have been to the delicate woman lying sickly in the room.

Opening the door once more, he left it ajar and sat in the armchair again, bringing it closer to her, so that he sat nearly right next to her bedside. Her eyes were closed, her face still exhausted of its color and healthy glow; but at least her lips weren't blue anymore yet still far from carrying the coral hue of their health. Gazing at her, he wondered vaguely if she even felt the first throbbing pains of the injuries on her back and then he sat back, waiting to hear the first notes of music.

-----

Light, breezy notes, not at all morose and heavy- something of a calming waltz but not quite so suited to be a ballroom dance. At times, the notes rushed together, not wanting to miss the chance to be heard, jumbling, tumbling, a tumult of soothing sound, and then at once, becoming slower, reminding of faintly of clouds, unhurried and traveling across a blue sky. All the while, her eyes were closed, enjoying the sounds and her dissipating dizziness.

What a lovely piano, and the violin-soothing, too, in its own right. The flute coming in at just the right moment, enhancing the unheard of and unrecognized piece. She did not know how long the notes had been playing, did not care if the composition went on forever, she only wanted to hear the melody continue to settle her mind and lessen the effects of her illness. Except for the music, she could hear nothing.

Opening her eyes, her eyes might the emerald-colored eyes of the Beast. In fact, he was close enough that she could make out the faintest hazel flecks immersed in their verdant tint. _Familiar_. Those eyes seemed so familiar, as if she had gazed at them sometime before. Shaking, her head, she focused on the door, feeling her cheeks flush with color as she mentally reprimanded herself for staring at him, not understanding why she felt so embarrassed.

Her face was gaining color again. She was blushing! Relived that for once, he was not the only one of the two feeling discomfort when they were together, he paused, trying to consider why she was reddening so. Then, he found the reason, and was thankful he, himself, could not redden like a beet under all the ruffled and matted fur, not that he usually would flush- as a human, he was much too confident for that. She was a maiden, and to finally come to her senses and know she was clad except for a thin and drying chemise and corset was nothing short of improper, especially for a rural girl such as herself. Then, too, he was male and in the room with her, in front of her. That had to be a factor as well.

But, she was covered, in satin and embroidered linen so that her form was barely visible now. Perhaps she was blushing for something else….But what?

"Belle?" the name spewed forth roughly and as dry as sawdust, and just as unappealing as sawdust would be to his tongue was her garbled name to his ears. Grimacing at the roughness of his voice, the low growl which suddenly seemed unfit to say a name so beautiful and airy, the Beast glanced at her, her form beneath the linen and her eyes wafting over everything and settling to something across the room.

Her eyes cut to him, her blushing ceasing, and she looked at him with a rather gentle acknowledgement. "But…you," she hesitated as if trying to piece together her jumbled thoughts, "…you saved me…Thank you." She murmured, taking her eyes from the picture once more and was very still. Both of them stared at each other, in a comforting silence, an easy sort of atmosphere where one was neither accusing or receiving the blame.

"You're welcome." He muttered, finally looking down and noticing her smooth and unblemished hand lying on top of his massive paw. Then all at once, she grew very still, gazing at him, at she opened her pretty mouth as he seemed to hang on her every word.

Comfort. That was what she gave him. A sense of well-being. So much strength and forgiveness and innocence and beauty coming from such a small person. So much she had not seen of life, and so much was she quick and easy to forgive. Even though he almost killed her. He could have killed her, if it hadn't been for the guiltiness bestowed upon him from the Great God only knew where.

"Your eyes…" she began, so softly it could not qualify even as a whisper, then unexpectedly she stopped abruptly, not wishing to continue, knowing it would be silly to ask so a question. Of course that portrait could not have been him, he was a Beast! What a way to ruin the silence and waste the beautiful melody in the background by mentioning something so thoughtless. A sudden wave of exhaustion drifted over her and she lay back, adjusting comfortably into the satin pillows, the Beast's soft gaze upon her.

She was so very gorgeous, in a way in which words would never do her any amount of justice. Bonafide exquisiteness rarely paralleled. It calmed him just to sit and watch her relax and fall into the gentle embrace of warm pillows; she would get better. If it cost him his own health to watch her day and night, he would see to it.

But for now, he would lay in the hold of the consoling armchair and listen to the soft and unhurried notes of the sedative music in the background. The perfect composition…an ode to a convalescent.


	12. Revelation and Roles Renversed

**Title**: Unworthy

**Author**: Rissa85

**Rating**: PG13- R

**Genre**: Drama, Romance, Angst

**Part**: _Part Eleven_ (Revelation and Roles Renversed)

Author's Note: As I look over these last few chapters. I begin to notice a plethora of typos, please forgive the abundance of them. I found at least five in the last chapter and three in the chapter before that. Because of my zealousness during the writing of this fanfiction, I sometimes speed through my writing trying to get all the words down. After the fanfiction is done, I'll go back and correct the mistakes; but for now, on to part eleven….

----

Progressively, the ache in her mid-back grew from a dull sort of pain to a more sharp and attention-seizing kind. She had not realized it even, until fully sitting up and accepting the warm mug of extra sweetened hot cocoa from the Beast. Wincing, she had sat up straight as she could and began took the silver handle of the spoon, a ferocious dragon with hideous jutting teeth encircled the handle menacingly and shifting uncomfortably, Belle pulled her eyes away from it.

"My back feels very sore." She uttered in her customary soft and soothing voice, the perfect complement to the now slow and melodious waltz in the background, the odor of spirits fled some time before and left an almost sickish sweet lingering smell in its wake. Reaching behind her to press her fingers to the dull ache, she bit her lip involuntarily and her hand jolted back from her back, tinged red and a slight sticky, she gasped.

The tell-tale carmine color tarnished the pads of her cold fingertips and had settled into the ridges slowly and sloppily so that it looked as if she had been a child messily dipping her hands in oil-based paint and cursorily wiped them, smudging the paint unceremoniously.

"Oh!" her eyes grew wide and she breathed dismayed and confounded, then as though a reflex, she spun around and sure enough there were three marks on her pillow, drying splotches of blood that marred the even and immaculate creamy ivory and maroon pillows beneath her. No uncertainties as to their getting out, that was sure. Forever the pillows were to be besmirched with her blood streaked about them. Feeling almost ashamed, she turned back around to face the Beast.

Now, she would find the stains on the pillows he had laid her upon. Remarkably, he was little bothered by the obvious desecration of the pillows he dared to breathe on, much less touch; yet, now, they were permanently mutilated. Even if the servants scrubbed the satin and silk until the fibers unraveled, or steamed the material until straight and stiff as a sheet of stationary, the faded revealing patches would loiter.

She would have to know, needed to know. He pressed his pointed talons into her yielding flesh so she would remain alive. Wincing, he turned his profile toward the wall which carried a slightly salmon tint and pretended to scrutinize the evenness of the wall across from him.

"I did that." He mumbled mellifluously, "You'd die if you fell asleep." Finished with his explanation, he looked out the corner of his eye and saw her give a nod, her hands still raised. Wordlessly, he took one of the drying white sheets about her and gripped her small hands.

Not expecting this spontaneous display, she imbibed the whole image which if nothing else demonstrated his mild if lumbering movements and actions. Touched by his thoughtfulness, she smiled sincerely, her white teeth showing, letting him almost coddle her.

He wiped her hands, slowly, feeling their softness and smoothness even through the linen which he kept between her hands and his paws. Something oddly comforting and satisfied pervaded him, anything to be of aid to her. It had been so long since he felt so advantageous to someone. But her hands, they were still so frigid even though it had been hours since he hauled her from the dungeon.

Sensing her reticence, he glanced up hastily, but the scene he beheld was one which captivated him and frightened him. It was her smile. Intense and dazzling, affectionate and divine…and perilously disarming. A face that no doubt caused many men's hearts to race could possibly be the undoing of him. All at once he felt warmed and energetic and then terrified and uneasy. He wanted to touch her, in the way that her smile touched him; yet, he wished to throw her hands back away from his and dart out of the room.

In a look which reeked of indignation and astonishment, he gazed at her, his eyes hard as steel and cold as ice. Something menacing appeared across his features and the russet hue of his fur which enhanced the searing sapphire of his eyes served to only intensify the poignant emotion permeating the air around them.

Recoiling from him, her deep brown eyebrows furrowed together coupled with ginger eyes, she whispered, her voice still moderately frail and still melodious, "Is there something wrong?" So angelic, was it feasible that such a face could encapsulate the look of naiveté and blatant self-admonishment…

Capriciously, he shook his head with vigor, "You did nothing. All of sudden…" he paused and an almost pleading look surfaced. At the moment, he supplicated, he requested, he needed, he yearned. And what it was that he felt all this forceful channeling of emotions led to was her.

The roles seemed inverted, she was now the Mistress he was the Servant. He felt an overwhelming compelling urge to do whatever she wanted, to retrieve whatever she needed. When he realized that he had begun to stare at her, he let dropped her hands brusquely and stood up, his height imposing and gargantuan in the feminine room, the moment lost and the feelings dissipating.

"Send for me if you need anything." He croaked before fleeing the room in quite a hurry which contrasted against the softness of the notes still spewing from an unknown source from within the castle. Flutes, cellos, violins. All combining together to form a quiet winter melody.

---

Winter. Casting brown eyes to the window, nothing could be seen due to the thick sash which covered the impeccable glass that showed her reflection even in the dim light of the room. Glancing toward the door to make sure the Beast would not come in and urge her back into bed, she slid her legs over the edge and slid off the midnight azure satin/

The soft soles of her feet glided against the cushiony rug with the numerous colored florets dancing about the border, woven with lemon thread which wound its way around the perimeter of the fabric in an interminable S-shaped path. When the rug came to an end, she met the cold marble floor and the sash covering the window.

Drawing the golden sash from the window, she gazed out and could see little. A harrowing blizzard had begun and whipped out, tossing handfuls of snows against the windowpanes and marring her vision, so that all she could see from the height the castle was constructed from was the shadowy forest, the trees nothing but even more obscure forms jutting out of the colorless ground and naked except for the large pines that always seemed immune to all weather.

---

How yellow he was! Running from a lady like she was Satan himself and acting like a little schoolboy afraid of a taunting bully! In the comfort of the West Wing, he seemingly slid across the room, accustomed to the broken chairs and vestiges of other furniture scattered across the floor combined with cracked light cobalt and gray vases turned on their sides complete with dozens of fabrics torn and shredded lying about dark-tinted dressers and a nearly broken canopy; he pursued his striding.

It was not a novelty for him to be infatuated with a woman that occurred many of times before this moment. This was unique, pristine and harrowing. Never in his life had he longed for a lady so much that anything would gladly be sacrificed for it. Of course, he did not love her. That was silly. But…this emotion he could not specify nonetheless, emerged.

Like an addict, now he was lacking her presence which he immediately craved. Once he would have called himself ridiculous for targeting a commoner such as Belle, the daughter of a man with limited means. Once he could have shot himself for panting at the sound of her voice like a canine following every command of its master with the utmost attention.

Sauntering out of the wrecked room, he descended the velvet-covered burgundy flights of marble stairs and moved smoothly through the corridors, laughing aloud to himself and mentally chiding himself on lowering his social position by experiencing the feelings he had for a common girl.

---

With the agility of a feline, he noiselessly shoved the door open, and faced Belle, her back to him in a warm room, uncovered except for the chemise and corset she donned before. Virginally clad in snowy white, she remained motionless except for the slight heave of her breathing, her dry and chestnut hair tumbling with the slightest wave to the middle of her back. Her skin, regaining its peach undertone and rosy tint and her small feet were immediately dwelt on and noticed.

She was common, plenty ladies notches above her in social standing clamored for his attention years before and like the haughty stunning young man he had been with the slightly tanned and lean frame, muscles slightly pronounced from hours of riding and archery, he reveled in their unmasked adulation of him. Blonde ladies with verdant eyes, brunette ladies with grayish eyes and women with flaming hair all catered to his whims, allowing themselves to be stroked by him in nearly every way conceivable, proper or not.

They did not hold a light to her before him, which was in and itself all the more bewildering. Father and Mother especially would have all but disowned him from becoming obsessed with a second-rate and mediocre merchant class girl with no prominent or even known social standing. Nothing but her exquisiteness and stubbornness to steady and back her in a society fixated on the family names and classes of its people.

He chose that moment to exhale audibly, and without delay she turned to face him and carried one of her softer looks. Seeing her feet upon the cold marble floor, he grunted, a slight vexed a little more than concerned. Still not fully recovered, but still inquisitive enough to glimpse out the window.

"Why aren't you in bed?" he inquired attentively, glancing from her feet to her ankles, and reluctantly permitting his eyes to travel her form until her reached the top of her head, where his eyes rested on hers. Opening her full lips and donning a culpable expression, she uttered softly, "I wanted to see the snow. You see, my Papa and I always made a snowman during the first snow…" She trailed off, and briskly glided back into the embrace of the warm satin.

What a foolish move! She chided herself. Not yet fully recovered, not thoroughly invalid…No wonder he questioned her in that bizarre tone of voice. Having recently saved her from the throes of freezing and now here she was in a thin chemise away from the candles and heat, pressing her head and hands against chilled glass. If she appeared to be obstructing herself from getting well, then no wonder his tone conveyed that-it would seem as if she was undeserving of his rescue.

Settled into the soft hold of exotic fabric, she sighed, bringing the now half-empty porcelain mug of hot cocoa to her lips, alleviated by some sort of minute and fleeting distraction. Silence reigned for a full moment before he inquired about something tremendously personal and a tad meddlesome.

Upon hearing her cursory explanation and the reference to her father, he began to ruminate on all of her words that evening. Always she spoke of her father, her 'Papa', as she termed him; but never had she spoke of her mother except in her hypothermic stupor when she professed adamantly that she had wished not to resemble her.

Of course, if she questioned him about his Mother, he would all but respond to the nosy inquiry. After all, he felt unpleasant having discourse with anyone over a subject, though long-standing, still caused him a great deal of unease and remorse; nevertheless, perhaps she would reply, if only because she was his prisoner.

"What about your mother?" he questioned slowly, then realizing how crudely he sounded, he elaborated disgracefully, "I mean to say, you always talk about your father, but never your mother." He stopped abruptly when he realized her expression, a perfect blend of veiled anguish and a hint of unhappiness.

Biting her lip, she paused, before mentioning slowly unhurriedly, "She passed in…in childbirth." Contemplating on the randomness and the officiousness of the query, she glimpsed at him. "What made you ask that?" her voice, small and sweet, met his large ears.

"You were mumbling earlier…" he answered vaguely. Silence returned for a few minutes or so before he noticed she had opened her mouth, then closed, waited a minute or two, then did the exact same thing. Twice. Something must have really compelled her to comment; he doubted her hesitation would be over something trivial. "Yes?" he invited her to speak.

Wringing her hands in a way he thought infinitely adorable, he watched as she finally clasped them together on her lap before speaking. "Well, what about your mother?" She watched as his balanced countenance mutated into a grimace which perceptibly soured the agreeable ambiance.

"She died." He muttered, succinct and nearly uncouth in its brusque declaration. "Those glass figures in the West Wing. The ones you smashed, those were hers." With pain, he glanced at her. A testimony to God, his Mother and he did not have a special and dear relationship toward the end of her life; nonetheless, the things that belonged to her meant an immeasurable amount to him. Impractical and futile it was to keep her possessions concealed in a dusty attic where no human nor object risked breathing on them save for him, when he grasped it would not make amends nor relive him of his blameworthiness; nevertheless, it consoled him that she had once owned what he touched with his paws, she had once doted on what he caressed with a talon. And now it was in a million pieces dispersed unforgivably about a wooden floor.

He should have never mentioned the subject of mothers. Why not fathers? The subject of fathers would have not made a variation in his mood one way or the other. The theme of fathers, paradoxically, would have made for an impersonal and trifling topic of conversation for him.

Feeling remorseful for ever mentioning the matter, he uttered hastily, "Sorry for asking such a question." In that one sentence, a stirring of gentlemanliness flitted through him and he looked to her for anything, something, some sort of confirmation of her acceptance. Apologies were scarce among him all throughout his life, and recurrently when he was mistaken, they were conspicuously absent; now, it seemed he was vulnerably exposing his soul.

The brown of her tresses framing her delicate face, slightly rosy with color, she nodded with a soft smile paired with a quizzical look. Her astoundment was finalized when capricious he reached over and stroked her face with a lone talon tenderly before sprinting away from her, leaving the memory of talon on skin and the confession about glass figures to linger.

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Usually, I don't leave Author's Notes at the end; but this was a longer chapter than usual. Somehow, this ended up sounding way more sappy than I cared for it to be. But hey! We're finally getting a smidge of romance here, so bear with me. Belle seemed a little…eh to me in this chapter. Mostly, it was from the Beast's perspective but oh well. Sorry for hiatus, but you had to see it coming right? Nothing to do+ Winter break fanfiction update. Also I hated the ending of this chapter. It wasn't all light and flowery and pretty like last chapter. Oh well, I'm trying to watch it with the typos from now on, so…look for another update with the next 10 or so days. ) Rissa85


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